About Kunci Kuppi

Kunci Kuppi is a small bakehouse and coffee shop in Banyuwangi, tucked between a village road and the rice fields of Licin.

We are not in the middle of the city. Getting here takes a little intention.

When we started, that was probably one of the biggest questions people had about us too: why build something like this here?

Almost three years later, we are still here — baking every morning, brewing coffee, cooking breakfast, meeting people from Banyuwangi and many places beyond it, and learning a little more every day.

It Started With Curiosity

Kunci has never really been about making one particular kind of food.

We are curious about how people around the world eat, bake, brew, and gather around a table.

That curiosity has taken our kitchen through sourdough, focaccia, shokupan, Korean-style salt bread, Banh Mi, pastries, sandwiches, cakes, and plenty of experiments that never made it onto the menu.

Sometimes we learn from books and research. Sometimes from travelling and tasting the food where it came from. And sometimes the most useful lesson comes from a guest sitting at one of our tables.

A guest from the hometown of focaccia once tasted ours and simply told us, “add oregano.”

Another group of Italian guests ordered focaccia with cappuccino and told us that dipping focaccia into cappuccino was something they grew up having for breakfast.

We tried it.

It was surprisingly good.

Small conversations like these have become part of how Kunci grows.

Bread Takes Time

Bread eventually became a big part of who we are.

Not because we originally planned to become an artisan bakery, but because bread kept giving us more things to understand.

Fermentation. Flour. Temperature. Butter. Hydration. Time.

Our kitchen has moved gradually from commercial-yeast breads into longer fermentation, hybrid methods, and full sourdough for some of our breads.

We still experiment constantly.

A recipe being good today does not mean we stop questioning whether it could be better tomorrow.

Ingredients Should Taste Like Themselves

We prefer ingredients that do not need much hiding.

Whenever possible, we avoid artificial flavouring and unnecessary shortcuts, and work with ingredients whose origins we can understand.

Some come from people close to us in Banyuwangi: eggs from Angon Lestari, lemons grown around Ijen, produce from local farms, seafood from fishermen around Pulau Santen, and other ingredients from farmers and producers we have met along the way.

Our coffee follows the same idea.

We are not trying to make coffee complicated for the sake of being complicated. We want sweetness, clarity, balance, and a cup people genuinely want to finish.

The same principle applies to bread, chocolate, breakfast, and everything else we serve.

Let the ingredient do most of the talking.

Made in Banyuwangi, Inspired by Everywhere

Kunci is deeply rooted in Banyuwangi, but our kitchen has never had borders.

A breakfast here might take inspiration from Japan, Italy, Vietnam, France, Korea, Laos, or somewhere much closer to home.

We do not claim that these are definitive or “authentic” versions of those foods.

They are our interpretation after tasting, studying, testing, failing, adjusting, and eventually finding a version that makes sense at Kunci.

Food has become one of our favourite ways to travel.

And sometimes, through the people who visit us, the world comes to our little village too.

More Than What Comes Out of the Kitchen

Over the years, Kunci has slowly grown from a very small team into a group of people learning hospitality together.

That matters to us as much as the food.

A good loaf means little if the experience around it feels cold.

So we keep working on both: how we bake and brew, but also how we welcome people, how we listen when something goes wrong, and how we improve the small details that guests may never notice when everything works properly.

We do not always get it right.

But we try not to stop learning.

Why We Keep Doing It

There are easier places to build a café than in the middle of a village.

There are easier ways to make bread than waiting for fermentation.

There are easier ways to run a kitchen than constantly questioning ingredients, recipes, and processes.

But perhaps that is exactly why Kunci became what it is.

A place built slowly.

Through curiosity, repetition, mistakes, conversations, and many mornings starting before the first guest arrives.

If you make the trip here, we hope you find something worth slowing down for.

A loaf fresh from the oven.

A cup of coffee.

Breakfast overlooking the fields.

Or simply a table where you can stay for a while.

Kunci Kuppi
Bakehouse & Coffee
Banyuwangi, East Java