Who doesn't know Nude? I think it's so unique how Nude's staff have almost become superstars, because they highlight the people behind the counter just as much as what's on the menu. Not to mention Khalda, the woman behind Chocberry (read about her story here), who has nothing but high praises for Christian, the owner of Nude, even saying "I wouldn't have my business if it's not because of him," recalling her time as marketing manager at Nude before going on to open four locations of her own in under a year.
Then one day, I sit down with the man himself. He welcomes me with a warm greeting, big smile on his face, and a "what do you want to drink?" Can’t hide the tiredness in his eyes after he’s been busy replying to people on his phone right before I sit in front of him.
After talking to him for an hour and a half, what strikes me is that he genuinely does welcome me as if I'm a guest coming to his home. As we talk, the staff keep looking over with curious eyes, sneaking a little giggle as we laugh. And when Christian himself leaves after the interview, the staff come up to me: "it seems like a great interview. You two were having so much fun!" It was then, I felt like the whole staff was part of my family too.
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London Nightclubs, Bali Humility, and Unlearning Everything He Knew About Managing People
Christian arrived in Bali in 2015 from a completely different world. He had been working in nightclubs in London, where hospitality ran at a different speed and on a different currency.
"There's waitresses earning like 500 pounds, 1000 pounds or more a night. And the way that you would run them would be: get on to it. Do this quickly. Why haven't you done this? No patience. Get it done, get it done. And that was the way people worked."
He brought that same energy to Bali. He thought that was what it took. But the people he was now working with operated from an entirely different place.
"I'm dealing with the warmest, kindest, empathic... Humility."
The shift was not ideological at first: it was practical. "They don't respond to being spoken to like that. It demotivates them."
In London, rough treatment was an unspoken trade-off for high pay. In Bali, the equation had to be entirely different.
"For us to create an environment where people stay, and they do stay, we have to have fair salaries. Good salaries. Good opportunities. And more importantly an environment where they feel safe."
Signing the Deal, Changing Everything Overnight, and the 2017 Boom
In 2017, Christian signed the lease on what would become Nude in Berawa. He took full control: removed his former partner from the business, and changed everything the very next day.
"I signed the contract, the next day I changed the coffee, I changed the plates, I had it all ready to go. I started changing everything and the business just then kept growing and growing and growing."
He swapped out cheap ingredients for quality ones. Hired new people. Cut food he didn't believe in. "I got the good yoghurt instead of the cheap yoghurt." The area was getting busier on its own, but the cafe was pulling people in by itself. Nude was becoming something.
But the thing that made it work was not the yoghurt. It was a waiter in another cafe who could not stop caring about his job, even when nobody around him did.
Putu, Employee Number One: The Man Who Said No with the Biggest Smile
Putu was employee number one. Christian used to visit the cafe where Putu worked. Among a team where most staff were on their phones and checked out, Putu stood out, not for his skill, but for something harder to teach.
"I just really respected how much integrity he had. And how much respect he had for the job that he was doing."
Christian doesn't poach. He says it plainly: "I never poach. Because I just don't think it's right." But six weeks out from opening, without the key person he needed to anchor his team, he found himself on his motorbike outside Putu's cafe, unable to ride away. "I was like, fuck it. I said to him, Putu, are you happy here? And he looked at me. And with the biggest smile on his face, he just shook his head."
Putu shared the usual reasons: unfair pay, poor treatment, a team that didn't care. Christian didn't offer him a waiter role. He offered him the top.
"I was like, no, I want you to be my manager. My number one. And he's like, oh, sir, I'm not ready. I'm not ready for that. And I said, you will be ready. You've just got the right spirit. You just aren't in the right environment."
Putu handed in his notice and started as manager on day one. Ten years later, he is still there, and still the spirit of what Christian always wanted the business to be. "Just really genuinely wanting the best experience for the guest."
Christian is quick to add: "But we fuck up. We make mistakes all the time."
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"We Don't Have Customers": Swan Theory, the Home Framework, and Why Guests Can Be Asked to Leave
The difference, he says, is what happens after the mistake. But to understand that, you first have to understand how Nude thinks about itself.
Christian doesn't use the word "customer." He never has.
The framework comes from an unlikely source: TGI Fridays. He worked there earlier in his career, and the chain ran on a system of service theories that stuck with him long after he left. One was Swan Theory: "On the surface, the swan is just gently gliding. But underneath, it's going crazy." The idea that guests should only ever see ease while the real work happens behind the curtain.
But the theory that defines Nude is simpler. He calls it "home is where the heart is."
"Our business, the site, is their home. And it means that when guests come to your home, how do you treat them? You welcome them at the door. You let them know that you're happy to see them. When they come into your home, what's the first thing that happens? You want to normally offer them a comfortable position. Let me take your coat. Can I offer you a seat? Have you had anything to eat? Can I give you a drink? They're a guest in your home, but not a customer."
And the theory works both ways. If someone came to your house and insulted your mother's cooking, you would not tolerate it. The same applies here.
"If someone comes in, say we make a mistake and we are polite and we do everything we can, and the guest is an asshole, they can fucking leave. I don't give a shit. They cannot come in here and disrespect the house."
He has given his team a single question to navigate any situation: would you feel comfortable if someone did that in your home? If the answer is no, they address it. Feet on tables. Laptop stands with triple screens and speakerphone calls. "If you're having a party at your house or a gathering and someone came in and did that, would you let that happen? No."
But if someone genuinely needs to get work done: "Have a seat over there, plug yourself in, do whatever you need to do, and when you're ready to join us, join us. Yeah, but just be respectful."
It is the simplest possible framework. And that is exactly the point. He believes that's the real reason the business has lasted a decade. "The real reason is we genuinely care. And not just me. The team genuinely cares."
Hiring People, Not Skills: And What Happens When Someone Stops Caring
"We're hiring people, not skills."
It's one of the clearest things he says in the whole conversation. "If you don't know how to make a coffee, you could be trained in a few hours. But attitude and heart is not trainable. So we need that first."
And when someone on the team starts to lose that spark, the first question isn't about them. It's about the house.
"First thing we do is think about what mistakes have we made. How are we not inspiring you to be good? Are we not giving you training? Are we not giving you care? Are we not making you feel safe? Is there something going on at home that we need to know about?"
Christian believes that most of the time, the problem is position, not person. "I think sometimes people don't feel they can impact the world around them. And that can demotivate people." But give them a role where they can actually make a difference, and he has seen people completely transform.
He sees this pattern everywhere. People in the wrong role, not the wrong company. "Someone might want to be a waiter, but their best position might be a host. They've got a great personality. They make people feel really welcome. But maybe they're terrible at remembering orders. So why force someone into a position that they're not good at?"
Across four locations, Nude now moves people between businesses constantly, not just to fix problems, but to give people room to grow.
Despite the care and the patience, Christian circles back to honesty about himself. "I'm difficult. I'm demanding. I work on my temper because I'm not a perfect person by any means. But I have what I believe are really pure goals and pure ambitions. It's just my own way of getting there."
"But they stay. And they stay because ultimately they feel safe and they feel that they'll get a fair deal."
COVID Nearly Broke Everything, but It Also Built the Tightest Team He's Ever Had
By the time the pandemic hit, Christian had expanded beyond Nude. He'd opened a cafe in the Berawa area, and a Mexican restaurant across the street. He had partners in both. When the pressure came to close, all three shut down.
"After two weeks people started to reopen. My partners in Nude, it was just me on my own. So for me, I'm like, we're opening, we've got staff to pay, I need to keep paying my rent so I have to keep going."
His partners in the other businesses didn't want to reopen. So Christian kept Nude alive alone.
"I lost everything. Every single month, losing money, keeping the team."
At first he paid full salaries. When that became impossible, he asked the team if they'd accept half. They agreed, and kept showing up for full shifts, every single day. "Because no one wanted to be at home miserable, so they'd still come in."
As COVID wore on, shiny new businesses started opening around Nude. Modern buildings, fresh investment. And Nude was operating out of what Christian calls "an old shack." He looked around at what was coming and made a terrifying calculation: "Even if people come back, they're not going to come to us."
So he went to refurbish the entire cafe. When the borders reopened, people came.
"And that very first day, I was like, oh, I guess that's it. One good day. They're never coming back after that. But then they kept coming back."
The team that had held together through the worst of it was tighter than ever. Their energy was the first thing you felt walking in.
"Because the team had been working together that whole time, their spirit was so lifted by seeing people come in. They were just such a tight team, that we just grew from that."
Coming out the other side, Christian made a decision. No more side projects. No more splitting focus. "I have to just focus on Nude now. Because it's the thing that I didn't take pride in. Because it was the little cute cafe, nothing sexy. And I was like, that's disrespectful."
From One Cafe to Five: Berawa, Umalas Pererenan, Seminyak, and Bingin
The growth since COVID has been steady, and in every case, pulled forward by friendships rather than strategy.
Berawa came first, in 2023. A close friend saw what Christian had been through and offered to do it together. "I was like, oh man, I'm too scared. And he said he would do it with me." The friend invested. It worked. Then he moved to Dubai.
Pererenan followed in 2024. Another friend spotted a location, went to see it the same day, and messaged Christian: let's do it.
"I went to see him within half an hour. In that half an hour, we made a deal. And then the same day I made the offer, we got the spot. And we opened within three months of that first time shaking hands."
That partnership was deliberately cautious. Christian had been burned before. "I had an ex-business partner and it had gone wrong. So I was a bit hesitant. And I was also hesitant going into business not knowing if I was going to be a good business partner too. I'd made mistakes. So I was like, what if I fuck it up?"
They agreed to test the relationship through one cafe. Six months later, both felt it was working. The partner is now half the business. They opened a new location together in September 2025, are moving Berawa to a bigger site, opening Seminyak by July on Jl. Kayu Aya, and have just signed for Bingin, a ground-up build near Cashew Tree.
As the business grows, so does the chance to do what Christian actually cares about most: move people into bigger roles.
"It's fun because I'll go to a business and we'll have someone in the business. And I can say to them, you're too big for this place. And they'll look at me and they'll be like, yeah, you need to move. I'll have to open a business for you."
Then he mention the current manager of the newest location, started as a waitress with no path forward (the person above her wasn't going anywhere). Christian moved her to manage a smaller cafe. She thrived. Struggling teams were sent to her, and they came back improved. When the bigger location opened, she was the obvious choice. Now she's being prepared to run Seminyak.
Christian has a specific admiration for the qualities he doesn't have himself. "I really value a lot of qualities that I personally don't have. Serene. Calm. Patient. I find things that I find hard to do really admirable."
Khalda, a Barista Who Wanted to Sing, and a Girl Who Dreams of Doing Nails
If there is one thing that separates the way Christian talks about Nude from how most business owners talk about their companies, it's this: he genuinely gets more excited about the people who leave than the ones who stay.
Khalda worked with him twice, first as an intern, then as his marketing manager. She understood the complexity of running a business with many moving parts. And then one day, she came to him with a dream.
"She said, I've got this crazy dream. And she's like, can you hear it out? I get goosebumps. Then she goes, I really just want to make chocolate-covered strawberries. And I want to sell them at the beach."
His reaction was immediate. "I was like, oh, you're a genius."
Khalda left Nude to start Chocberry, which opened four branches in under a year. "We really needed her. But how could I not support someone's dream to do that?"
He had always told her: if he could start over, he would keep it simple. "The easiest way and the most rewarding way to do hospitality from what I've seen is to have a small line of products. Because you can get all the joy." The joy he describes is specific: watching someone walk in and light up. Seeing their reaction to the food.
And Khalda is not the only one. A barista at Nude wanted to be a singer. Christian put him in a studio, had him record his first song, sent the content team to shoot a video, and tried to promote it. Another team member, wanted to be a nail technician. Christian connected her with a friend's girlfriend who runs a nail tech company. They trained her for six months. Now they're planning to post on Nude's Instagram, asking nail salons across the island to give her a shot.
"We don't want to lose her. But we want her to achieve her dream."
But not everyone on his team has that kind of dream. And Christian respects that equally. "Many of the team don't feel that way. Their dreams are bigger than that. Their dream is to be a strong part of their community. To support the community. To support their parents. These are more honourable and often more challenging dreams."
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He pauses. "If I make a million dollars, people are going to be like, what a guy. Well done. But if I'm a really good husband, a really good father, taking care of my father, no one is fucking giving me awards for that. But who's the better person?"
His Wife and Why Personal Growth and Business Growth Are the Same Thing
At home (his actual home) Christian has someone who keeps him honest.
"My wife is really calm. She's patient. She's thoughtful." He brings decisions to her not for approval, but for clarity. "I present it to my wife. And I just let her help unravel my feelings. Because she recognizes what emotion I attach to things and what is logic."
She catches things he would miss in the speed of running a growing business. "She tells me when I'm making too quick a decision. She reminds me of someone that's done something for me that meant something. She's like, don't forget that this person was this to you."
He has come to believe this kind of relationship is not optional for someone like him.
"You need someone to get the best out of you. If you're just living your life on the run, there's no one to mirror. There's no one holding up a mirror to say, you could be better. You just think you're the fucking shit."
Personal growth and business growth, he says, are not separate tracks. "They're one and the same, I think."
Christian applies this directly to the business. "It's like I'm not treating the team the way I need to. I have to own up to that. And how do I fix it? I have to grow. And then something else comes along. I'm making decisions too quickly. How do I improve that? I have to grow."
A Business That Outgrows Him, and a Team That Stays for Life
When I asked Christian about the future, he started small. He wants to keep improving what Nude offers, but in a way he used to resist.
"I used to believe that it was just service and food that was enough to keep people happy. And I now realize that there is real value in the aesthetic." He used to push back on that idea. "I didn't think it was fair. Like, why should I care about that?"
But for the first time, he hired an interior designer. "Before I just tried to do it myself and it was not good." Each new location is being shaped around its community. Bingin will be barefoot and beachy, Seminyak will be a step up in polish, Berawa will feel like the home it has always been. "It's not just about the brand. It's about where are you. Who are you serving?"
But the ambition underneath all of it is characteristically not about himself.
"What would be amazing is I grow it past my capability. I feel like I'm still handling it. But it would be wonderful that the business gets to a size where I'm not good enough to look after it. Because then it's like a real achievement. It's like having a child that grows up and goes past what you've been capable of."
And for the team (the family inside the house) the goal is permanence.
"I feel it would be really good to know that everyone feels they've got a job for life. Not just for a period. Putu knows that he's taken care of for life regardless if Nude closes tomorrow."
Christian doesn't care about age, background, or how long someone has been in the industry. He cares whether they care. And if they do, the deal is simple: they're looked after. If someone needs to go part-time for family reasons, they're supported. If someone has been with the business for a decade, they know they're not disposable. "I really would like, the longer these businesses run, the more people can work with us and know that they've got jobs for life."
He's equally clear about not holding people back when the right opportunity comes along. If a team member wants to leave for a genuine step up (a bigger kitchen, a more ambitious project) Christian lets them go. He just won't let someone walk into something worse than what they already have. "Why are you moving somewhere that is delivering lower than what we're delivering now?"
I've been to Nude many times and never once thought about any of this. I just thought it was a well-run cafe, by staffs that are well-trained in hospitality. But after sitting with Christian, I get it. It's not just a well-run cafe, it's also a home. And everyone who works there knows it's theirs too.
Nude has no customers. It has guests. And behind the counter, through the kitchen, across five locations and into whatever comes next, it has family.
