Pascal Gadet shares a joke with the management team, all of whom have been working at Hotel Missoni Kuwait for two years. Pascal Gadet shares a joke with the management team, all of whom have been working at Hotel Missoni Kuwait for two years.

Culinary Arts at Missoni Kuwait
Taking its Italian roots seriously means that food is very important at Hotel Missoni Kuwait, says Gadet.

The restaurant concepts — Choco Café, Cucina and Luna — were created by executive chef Ramon Salto with consulting chef Giorgio Locatelli. The collaboration with Locatelli ensures the authenticity of the outlets and the standards of the culinary team, some of whom are trained by Locatelli in London.

“The Kuwaitis love to eat out and they love to have different choices, but there is a lack of authenticity. There are no genuine concepts, all are franchises or something that has been copied and that is where we want to be different from the rest with the authenticity. We have a very different product,” asserts Salto.

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During the two-year, pre-opening period, Salto worked tirelessly to source original Italian products and also makes his own halal salamis and Italian bread.

“I sourced a lot of products myself by contacting producers in Italy or UK or US, finding the product and then putting them in contact with distributors here, so I just created a link that works for everybody,” says Salto.

“I don’t mind that people use the same products we use, I think it will help to bring up the standards of the hotel industry and the rest of the F&B industry.”

Choco and Cucina have already been tried and tested by the local market, with Italian outlet Cucina averaging daily between 125 and 150 covers on the à la carte menu, according to the director of food and beverage Subin Dharman.

“We would like it to grow steadily, however, as we aim to provide absolute quality we take great care of each and every guest and we are not encouraging these numbers to grow too fast,” he says.

Still to open at Missoni in June is Luna, a restaurant on the 18th floor with a spacious terrace.

“You will discover a lounge-bar-restaurant, which will have an Arabesque touch and will be unmistakably Missoni. It is an informal outlet based on Mediterranean cuisine (as opposed to Cucina, which is purely Italian) on a sharing basis, offering dishes rather than courses,” says Dharman.