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Pat Tanumihardja

Freelance writer

As a cookbook author born in Jakarta, raised in Singapore and now living in the Northern Virginia, Pat Tanumihardja often writes about diaspora identity and culture through food. Her bylines appear on Serious Eats, Epicurious, Eating Well and Washington Post, to name a few. Her fifth and latest cookbook, Mortar and Pestle—Classic Indonesian Recipes for the Modern Kitchen, cowritten with her mother, Julia, launched in 2024. 
At Nona Manis, dining guests can enjoy a prix-fixe menu that may include any of these dishes: ikan pindang patin (braised fish), steak semur (steak with kecap manis sauce), laksa (seafood curry soup), oyster sambal matah and oyster gulai Aceh (oyster on the half shell with Balinese sambal and Aceh curry).

A New Generation of Chefs Reimagines Indonesian Cuisine in the Netherlands to Tell the Stories of Its Origins

The shift reflects a larger cultural moment, with chefs asking whether the cuisine should remain tied to colonial nostalgia or evolve into a reflection of modern Indonesian identity