Until now, chefs whose restaurants have received Michelin stars have invariably entered the Middle East market with an alcohol licence. Not so Tom Aikens, who has opened his first outlet in the region — Pots, Pans & Boards — at The Beach Mall in JBR, which is a casual dining venue sans alcohol. It’s not an anomaly — the entire stretch is a hot bed of unlicensed and casual dining venues. But is the chef happy with a dry venue?
I meet Aikens for the first time a day or two after he lands in Dubai before the restaurant’s opening. Self-admittedly jet-lagged, he’s still up for a chat. When asked about the licence, he says: “I don’t think it is a problem because everyone else has no licence as well.
“I’ve been here in prime season and seen how packed and busy [the restaurants] are, so I don’t necessarily think it is an issue. Because if everyone else isn’t serving alcohol then it’s not going to make any difference to us either.”
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It didn’t affect the menu planning to a large degree, he says. “Some of my dishes may have some alcohol in them which I’ve completely removed [here]. So there were a few recipes that I definitely had to change or not use, which is what it’s all about. When you go abroad to other cities, you have to embrace the culture. There are always some restrictions in what you can or can’t do in any country, really. But that shapes your mind in terms of what you’re going to cook.”
So why did the chef, previously plagued with a reputation for a short temper, decide to enter the Middle East market? Aikens was approached by property developer Meraas “around a year-and-a-half to two years ago to come up with a concept”. While Aikens admits he has been tempted even before that, he was put off by reports of the supply chain.
He reveals: “I had a couple of my chefs who have worked here, and they were saying it was difficult to get reliable delivery of food consistently. When the food travels out of a country, sometimes it’s not in a good state... you can’t send it back all the way to Australia.”
From then until now, Aikens believes that the standard of restaurants has improved in the region, with positive stories filtering back to him in London.
He is all praise for Meraas, and says: “Meraas is a great company to work for. It made it pretty easy, I have to say. You’ve got all sorts of different concepts here, and [Meraas] wanted to have something that was different, but also tied in to the informality and the casualness of the others.” This is the second British chef Meraas has pulled into the mall — the first was young chef Luke Thomas, who opened Retro Feasts just a few units down from Aikens.
Speaking of which, Aikens is obviously not the first celebrity chef to open a restaurant in the Middle East. Whereas some of them have moved here (Gary Rhodes), others visit often (Vineet Bhatia), and others don’t appear at all (Jamie Oliver). Aikens plans to strike a happy medium. Speaking just before a dinner preview at the restaurant, Aikens says competition is good.
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