A place being built, with intention

In a world that feels increasingly disconnected… … The Hill is our answer to that.

Where
Darek · Central Lombok
Since
Mid-2024
Opening
Slowly, slowly, then all at once
There's more

The idea

We felt disconnected too. From the food we ate. From the hands that grew it. From the land, the seasons, each other.

And it wasn't just a feeling. Monocrops were stripping the soil bare. Poultry came dosed with antibiotics and saline. Produce was grown in chemicals strong enough to kill what pollinates it. "Fresh" had started to mean shipped, gassed, and dressed up to look alive. We were eating it too. A slow-motion emergency. We called it normal.

We wanted somewhere that closed the gap. Where animals fertilise the soil, the soil grows the food, and what we don't eat feeds the animals. Nothing wasted. Nothing pretending.

A place for long tables, open fires, and people who want to reconnect — with food, with soil, with each other.

Where we are

A hill. Rice in every direction. A lake, mountains beyond.

Darek is a village forty minutes inland from Kuta, past the surf towns and up into the foothills of Pergasingan. The land here is volcanic loam — black, clay-heavy, generous once you work with it.

You won't find us on a beach bar map. We think that's a feature.

Airport
10 km
Kuta
25 km
Selong Belanak
20 km

The farm

What's growing
on the hill.

Everything you eat here grew within earshot of the table. No chemicals. No shipping containers. No "fresh" that flew in from two islands away.

  • The garden

    Ninety-six beds, thirty-plus varietals. Greens, roots, herbs — the things most kitchens buy from a truck. We pick what’s ready, cook what we pick. Forty more beds going in.

  • The forest

    One syntropic grove — fifteen fruit trees and perennials layered together, feeding each other from their own fallen leaves. Two more are going in.

  • The ponds

    Giant gurami in the fish pond, growing slow and sweet. The flock on the other, most mornings. Both ponds raise themselves once the system is right.

  • The animals

    Chickens, ducks, quail, rabbits, goats. Each one has a job — fertilising, clearing, grazing, laying. Nothing wasted. Nothing pretending.

Sharing the abundance.

The food we grow goes first to the team, their families, our neighbors. A couple of veggie stands in the surrounding villages carry what we can spare. Sharing is built into the model — the more we grow, the wider the circle.

  • A few chefs — the kind who taste every raw ingredient before they design a menu, who care where it grew, who cook with the seasons. Quietly, by relationship.

  • The long table — a few times a season, we cook a meal from what's ready. Small. Dinner ends around the fire — guitars come out, a drum gets passed, nobody checks the time.

Health-conscious eaters, more chefs, the restaurant we're building toward — as the circle widens, we'll write when there's room.

What we're building.

We became stewards in mid-2024. The Hill House villa is already hosting. We've paused new events for a season — to finish the soil, expand the gardens, and add a few more structures. By the time we open fully, the hill will be ready.

  1. 01 Hill House Villa Open-air, overlooking rice fields and mountains. Full kitchen, lounge. Our first place to host. Built
  2. 02 The kitchen & dining Commercial kitchen, dining room, community kitchen. Where the harvest becomes the table. Next
  3. 03 Yoga shala Open to the hill. For stillness, for practice. Next
  4. 04 Three more stays Eco-friendly, low-impact, built by neighbours. Then
  5. 05 Open, fully Gatherings, stays, residencies. When the soil is ready — not before. Eventually

Come as you are.

The fire is lit, the tea is brewing.