The Dubai food scene is at full boil. Here’s a taste

The Dubai food scene is at full boil. Here’s a taste

The emirate now boasts some 13,000 establishments — more per capita than New York City — and some are nabbing global laurels

By Seth Sherwood Published: Sat 17 Dec 2022, 7:04 PM

In mid-September, on an artificial, palm tree-shaped island in the Arabian Gulf, an avant-garde dinner service — “performance” is a better word — kicked off around 6 pm in a dimly lit restaurant on the roof of Dubai’s Nakheel Mall. Outside, the twilight call to prayer echoed off skyscrapers, construction sites and neighbourhoods filled with low white villas.

Inside, electro music pulsed as servers initiated the nearly 20-course, Dh695 meal with postmodern panipuri, crispy pastry cups filled with palm hearts.

A succession of theatrical props and neo-Indian dishes followed: Cinnamon bark stuck with nuggets of baked crab. A glass teapot of mushroom broth to be poured over mushroom noodles. With great ceremony, servers deposited grilled pineapple, tomato broth and other dishes. Then the lights went out and Fly Me to the Moon filled the room. By the time the last course — white chocolate ice cream with Emirati honey — had been consumed, Frank Sinatra’s voice was fading away.

No, this wasn’t a scene from The Menu — the new movie that stars