A Michelin food guide-inspired gourmet food trail across Dubai’s inventive restaurants

Dubai’s food scene is similarly studded with culinary stars,  creating menus with precious ingredients sourced from all over the world. Like Anadol’s winds, the culinary scene changes with consistent drama, attracting talent from everywhere. Where do you start? The writer uses the influential Michelin guide to chart a gourmet food trail across the city. 

In Dubai luxury is casual. A grocery run in a Lamborghini, Wagyu in mall burgers, sharks in a lobby. And a Refik Anadol multimedia artwork providing a languid backdrop to the reception of the hotel Indigo Dubai Downtown. 

Titled Winds of Dubai, the intriguingly moody art showcases vivid three-dimensional sculptures from an expansive dataset of the city’s changing wind-speeds and temperatures. It is the LA-based media artist’s first public art piece in the Middle East, and I do a double take when I notice it: a fan of his work, I always assumed I would have to go to New York’s MOMA to finally see it in person, not randomly stumble upon a signature piece while checking into a hotel room. 

Not surprisingly, the city’s food scene is similarly studded with culinary stars,  creating menus with precious ingredients sourced from all over the world. Like Anadol’s winds, the culinary scene changes with consistent drama, attracting talent from everywhere. Where do you start? I use the influential Michelin guide to chart a gourmet food trail across the city. 

Currently one of the city’s hottest tables, Moonrise would be intimidating if it was not for their friendly, if reticent, young chef in a baseball cap: Solemann Haddad. Set in a smart residential building, the restaurant seats just 12 people with two dinner seatings, at 6.30 pm and 9.30 pm. 

There’s an expectant silence in the lift as it speeds up 30 floors, and when the doors slide open, Dubai sparkles around us, a mesmerising display of twinkling traffic lights and sweeping skyscrapers. The restaurant is sleek and set in glass, cleverly capitalising on the view. 

Dinner is served in 12 courses, each presented like a family heirloom, with love, stories and a cleverly curated wine list that includes Taittinger champagne, Gaia thalassitis from Santorini’s indigenous Assyrtiko grapes and, in a nod to Solemann’s French-Syrian heritage, Domaine de Bargylus wine from Syria.

Born and brought up in Dubai, Solemann describes his omakase menu as ‘Dubai Cuisine,’ and opens with a Foie gras Puri, saying “It is almost as Dubai as it is Indian.” The crisp puri is filled with a morish blend of foie gras, pineapple-saffron chutney, and date syrup, with Szechuan chilli oil, then topped with an edible flower. It is a clever blend of technique and ingredients made to look effortless, and a good example of why Solemann was named Dubai’s Young Chef of the Year by the Michelin Guide in 2022.