Although it is a small unit, food from Raw Bar will also be available on the menus of other St Regis F&B outlets, and as a room-service option for in-house guests. The cross promotion of St Regis outlets will also be evident at the hotel’s Grand Brunch.
The concept — using 18 live cooking stations and 10 bars outdoors — was launched in March and immediately doubled the number of brunch covers from 300 to 600.
“The Grand Brunch is an opportunity for us to create a big buzz for our F&B outlets. It has become a great success. You don’t sit in your chair — you go around the area and experience everything.”
Ambiance is enhanced with a five-piece band set up in the middle of the lawn, one of a number of live acts employed by St Regis Dubai across its F&B venues.
“Oyster Bay is our venue on the beach. We had a reggae band twice a week on Thursdays and Fridays for three years. But we started to notice a decline, so we wanted to bring a new vibe. We’re flying in a new band from Cuba, who will be performing Wednesday to Saturday.
Meanwhile, The Club — St Regis’ half-moon shaped cabaret-style bar — has enjoyed a long-term collaboration with the New York-based Jazz at Lincoln Centre. “Over four years they taught us about quality music and we have learnt what our clientele want.
“Ultimately the jazz niche wasn’t big in Doha. So we will now be bringing live entertainment with a different genre of music — soul, bossa nova, blues… We won’t compromise the quality of the sound, and will use good artists who deliver, booked for up to two months maximum. We didn’t change the layout — it looks the same but now has a different music repertoire.”
The Club promises “a little bit of something for everyone”, in a true dinner show setting. Guests can enjoy a wide variety of food that includes small bites, tapas, à la carte dining as well as set menus. “The dinner show menu is becoming very popular,” says Losciale. “You can dine, and then it becomes uptempo and people start dancing. The vibe goes up, and we also attract a post-dinner crowd. It is very romantic.”
Losciale talks about the two elements that combine to delight St Regis customers — the food and the overall experience. Both are equally important. And his passion for quality food is evident when he talks excitedly about the produce.
“We now dry age our own meat [at Astor Grill],” he enthuses. “We bought a dry-age fridge in May and age our meat for a minimum of 21 days. We used to buy it dry aged for 15-20 days. But now we do it ourselves and the meat is so much more tender.”
Which brings him back to the topic of discounts. “We don’t want to do promotions — we want to bring something new on board based on quality products,” says Losciale.
St Regis’ competition – Marsa Malaz Kempinski, The Four Seasons, Shangri-La and sister hotel The W are “raising the bar”.
“It’s healthy competition,” he insists, adding that St Regis is rising to the challenge. “This soft crisis is impacting on rooms, but not F&B at this property. We’re sustaining that business with quality and entertainment.”
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