Makassar Food & Coto Makassar Walk
Eat through Makassar's extraordinary food culture — the city is one of Indonesia's great food cities, famous for coto Makassar (offal soup), pallu basa, konro (ribs), and the fresh seafood grilled on the waterfront that has made South Sulawesi cuisine one of the most celebrated regional food traditions in the country.
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Coto Makassar Restaurant Row
Coto Makassar is the city's most famous dish — the thick, dark soup made from beef offal (heart, lungs, intestines, and brain) in a broth of 40 spices including lemongrass, galangal, and candlenut, served with ketupat rice cakes and sambal is eaten for breakfast by Makassar residents at the restaurants that specialise in it. The restaurant Coto Nusantara and others on the coto restaurant strip represent the most authentic version of a dish that is found across Indonesia but is specific to Makassar in its preparation.
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Pasar Sentral Food Stalls
The food stalls in and around Pasar Sentral (Central Market) serve the full range of South Sulawesi street food — the pallu basa (beef and offal soup with coconut milk), the kapurung (sago porridge with fish), and the various rice dishes served from stainless steel trays create a market food environment where Makassar's culinary diversity is most accessible and most affordable, with prices reflecting the local rather than tourist economy.
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Losari Seafood Float Restaurants
The floating seafood restaurants along the Losari beach promenade are Makassar's most popular tourist dining destination — the platform restaurants extending over the water serve grilled fish, prawns, crabs, and squid caught that day in the Makassar Strait, with the sunset view across the water providing the most dramatic dining backdrop in the city. The format of choosing live seafood from tanks before it is cooked is the defining dining experience of coastal Makassar.
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Konro Bakar Bone Rib Restaurant
Konro Bakar (grilled ribs) is Makassar's premium meat dish — the beef or buffalo ribs marinated in kluwek (black keluak nut) and spices before slow cooking and finishing on the grill produce a dish of deep, earthy flavour specific to South Sulawesi cuisine. The restaurants specialising in konro, particularly the famous Konro Karebosi near the central square, attract diners from across Indonesia who specifically travel to Makassar for the dish.
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Pisang Epe Street Snack
Pisang epe (flattened grilled banana with palm sugar) is Makassar's most beloved street snack — the vendors who set up their grills along the Losari promenade press and grill bananas before dressing them with liquid palm sugar, coconut milk, or durian paste create the definitive Makassar street food experience, eaten while watching the sunset over the Makassar Strait and providing a sweet conclusion to the seafood dinner that precedes it on the same promenade.
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Makassar Coffee Culture
South Sulawesi is one of Indonesia's premier coffee-producing regions, and Makassar's coffee culture reflects this — the Toraja arabica coffee from the highlands 300km north, the Enrekang arabica, and the Kalosi single-origin varieties served in the city's growing specialty coffee scene represent the most direct connection between Indonesia's coffee agriculture and its urban coffee consumption, with Makassar increasingly becoming a regional specialty coffee hub.