The latest from St. Regis Saadiyat Island

It’s been another busy month for the team at St.Regis Saadiyat Island Resort, which has now moved from the pre-opening office to the hotel itself, says John Pelling

Into August and the heat is on. The overseas recruitment trips took place in July with several countries visited. We have a headcount in our pre-opening budget of close to 800 associates, and, in theory, we are almost there. Now the massive administrative task of getting visa approvals and booking flights begins.

OS&E deliveries had been causing me concern as the function space is not quite ready to be used as a delivery point for checking, recording and distributing.

The project team at Mirage Mille has found a solution by constructing a secure, air-conditioned and carpeted store in the car park.

Problem solved — so now we can start to receive the thousands of boxes from hundreds of different vendors.

This in itself is a major logistical challenge, as deliveries must be coordinated to the minute to ensure no vehicle bottlenecks and sufficient time for our team to receive and check each item.

We have said a fond farewell to our pre-opening home of the last five months, and moved into the hotel, obviously a major milestone for everyone, and it’s great to be physically on site each day in the midst of the action.

Another important milestone was ticked off our to-do list recently. St. Regis Hotels has a long tradition with its roots firmly based in New York.

Part of this tradition is a series of rituals that are respected in all our hotels worldwide. One of these is related to the famous cocktail the Bloody Mary, or Red Snapper as it was known, created by Fernand Petiot who worked at the St. Regis New York’s legendary King Cole Bar in the 1930s.

Today, every new St. Regis property is challenged to create a local interpretation of the original recipe.

Alex Lahmer the EAM i/c food and beverage spent many hours mixing and blending local ingredients and I was forced to sample large quantities of his various efforts.

I am pleased to report that a very satisfactory conclusion has been reached and our sophisticated Manhattan Lounge, overlooking the beautiful Saadiyat Beach, will be ready to serve our speciality cocktail and its mocktail equivalent from November.

Our unique twist on the classic recipe is a pinch of cumin and a much larger pinch of za’atar, with the beverage to be called The Arabian Snapper.