BACK ROW L-R: Executive assistant to GM Sothanee Boonvanit; director of engineering Andre Brinckman; security manager Khalid Khalil; director of revenue Jimmy Jacob; executive chef B.Pathmanathan. FRONT ROW L-R: Director of finance Parag Varshney; HR manager Jergen Arnade; director of rooms Rorie Ylagan; GM Scott Mawhinney; director of F&B Simone Stanco; hygiene manager Shahul Hameed and DOSM Stefan van der Kruyf.
Winning formula
The final piece in the jigsaw for Mawhinney is the “Thai graciousness” service culture, which he believes will keep guests returning to the Dusit Thani Abu Dhabi, which is the Asian operator’s first hotel in the UAE capital.
Out of the 500-plus employees comprising 28 different nationalities that will eventually be employed at the hotel, around 20% will be from Thailand.
Many of these Thai staff will be working as therapists across the eight treatments rooms, including two couples’ suites, at The Namm Spa. “Our Namm teams are all from Thailand and received their training there. So I think it’s one of the unique selling features of the hotel in terms of service,” agrees Ylagan.
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All staff at the hotel’s signature ‘royal Thai cuisine’ restaurant Benjarong will also be from Thailand, guaranteeing its authenticity. The restaurant concept is a popular one that features in numerous Dusit hotels worldwide.
Executive chef B. Pathmanathan says: “This is our signature restaurant; we have a very good Thai chef in charge of that place. With royal Thai cuisine, you need to bring someone in who really knows it”.
Benjarong is one of six F&B outlets, which chef Pathmanathan and director of F&B Simone Stanco have spent the last two years conceptualising and creating.
Urban Kitchen is the hotel’s all-day dining restaurant comprising 180 seats and serving up international cuisine via five live cooking stations, and hot and cold counters. There is also a private dining room and the outlet is open around the clock.
“The USP of Urban Kitchen is due to its size we’re planning to have lots of promotions, especially after Ramadan, kicking in with brunch. We’ll definitely attract the local community,” says Stanco.
Complementing Urban Kitchen is Urban Café, a retail outlet located close to the ballroom: “This will pretty much focus on providing F&B for the office tower — all takeaway for the convenience of people who work in the office, they can come and grab a coffee in the morning,” he explains.
In fact retail will make up a relatively large part of the F&B offering at Dusit Thani Abu Dhabi, with a second outlet, Dusit Gourmet, also focusing on takeaway options. Next to the atrium is the glamorous looking Orchid, specialising in organic produce and “offering something different on the market”.
The final outlet is Capital Grill, a “bistro grill, with a lounge and bar area” offering Western cuisine and speciality items for up to 80 diners.
All of the F&B outlets, bar the Urban Café, are located on the same floor just a short walk from the atrium, and just above the meeting facilities on the lower floor. According to Stanco, when the hotel opens the emphasis will be on “service and attention to detail”, but eventually the hotel is targeting 40-45% of total hotel revenue to be generated from F&B.
“F&B is definitely very important for us especially considering the fact we have a very captive audience around us, we have the office tower, the residential building with 600 apartments, so they’re just waiting for us to open,” adds van der Kruyf.
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