Reservations are being taken through spring 2025, with more than 400 people on the waiting list.
SAN DIEGO — A fine dining experience you won’t find anywhere else in San Diego County is located next to a school in the residential neighborhood of Serra Mesa.
Indonesian tradition
Warung Rie Rie is an Indonesian restaurant run by chef Rie Sims and her husband Dave Sims, where guests can dine in a backyard setting, housed in a traditional rice hut imported from Indonesia.
Reservations are booked up to a year in advance, and there are more than 400 people on the waiting list.
“Every year, [we’re] “We’re so grateful. We’re booked a year in advance. We don’t do any advertising, it’s just word of mouth. All our guests make Reels or TikTok videos that go viral,” Chef Ries said.
She explained that “warung” is Indonesian for a small family-run shop, and the owner’s name follows on from that.
Chef Lee said she and her husband had run a catering business together for many years. The two met while Dave was living in Bali. They married in 2011 and Lee moved with him to Sera Mesa, Dave’s childhood hometown.
Dave fell in love with a vintage rice house and had one shipped to San Diego, initially to use as a home office, but they decided to use it to open a small restaurant.
In 2021, Warung Rie Rie became the first Small Business Home Kitchen Operation (also known as MEHKO) licensed by the county, serving meals to up to 12 guests per night, three nights a week.
Chef Rie says success was immediate: Two social media heavyweights were booking reservations as soon as the website went live, and posting videos of their dining experiences at the Rice House. Business quickly took off.
Chef Rie led me through the rice shop and the lush gardens surrounding it.
“80 percent of the vegetables from our garden are used in all of our menus and dishes,” says Rie.
“I like to use everything,” she added, “especially since it’s so hard to get the ingredients you need. Indonesian cooking uses a lot of herbs.”
I tried the arugula – crunchy, tangy and pure in flavour – and I also tried the edible flowers.
Chef Rie cooks meals in his family’s kitchen using the vegetables we harvest from the garden. The couple have two sons, ages 10 and 8, who watch over Chef Rie as he cooks.
She creates an Indonesian ahi poke dish with sushi-grade bluefin tuna caught in San Diego.
She said her cooking helps teach her children about their Indonesian traditions – all of her family still lives in Indonesia and she visits them regularly.
“Everything I serve here is like traditional grandma’s cooking,” Chef Rie said.
In 2016, she cooked for Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who was in Palm Springs for President Barack Obama’s ASEAN Summit. The president wanted a home-cooked meal, so his staff asked Chef Rie to cook it.
Her husband works as a host and server at a restaurant that serves six-course meals.
“This is fun! My husband is serving me food,” she joked as we sat down and ate a few dishes.
She says they’ve had some amazing guests, some who have flown in from all over the world to dine there, and some who have even flown in just to dine at Warung Lee Lee and then flew back out the same night.
As I started to eat the second course, I realized I didn’t need a fork.
“In a traditional household, eating with your hands is the best,” she says with a smile.
The main course was barbecued fish, which was very filling and surprisingly rich in flavour. The dish came with three cucumber cups with different sauces. Dave warned us that the one on the far left was sweet and very spicy. He was right. But all three were delicious.
Chef Rie says that in Indonesia, family comes first. It was her father who taught her how to cook, and they were very close.
“My father [was] “Something people always say to me is that when someone gives you food, it means they put their heart into it, because they cook with their heart,” she said.
And she said her heart was full.
“I’m so happy and grateful to everyone who came. I now have friends all over the world,” she added.
Dining at Warung Rie Rie costs $220 per person.
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