The cult of celebrity chefs

By Guy Wilkinson

According to Viability director Guy Wilkinson, the link between celebrities and cuisine is now firmly established, going beyond Dubai’s F&B scene and outside of the traditional fine dining bracket too

The flavour of the month in Dubai’s culinary circles is food and beverage outlets linked to celebrity chefs, or in some cases, celebrity interior designers.

The seeds of this new trend were arguably sown in 1998, when the Galadari family invited renowned interior designer Tony Chi to create the La Moda Italian restaurant at what was then the InterContinental (now Radisson Blu) on Dubai Deira Creek, complete with wood panelling, light box walls filled with rows of bottles, a resident Lambretta scooter and waiters in orange boiler suits.

Chi went on to design Teatro at the Towers Rotana, another firm favourite of Dubai’s trendies.

Since then, a plethora of new ‘name’ restaurants and clubs have opened in Dubai. The UK’s most irascible TV chef, ex-footballer Gordon Ramsay, operates both Verre and Glasshouse at the Hilton Dubai Creek, which are French and international outlets respectively. Another British TV chef, Gary Rhodes, runs Rhodes Mezzanine at the Grosvenor House Hotel, serving that elusive commodity, contemporary British cuisine.

Joining the ranks of British gastronomers in Dubai are champion jockey Frankie Dettori and celebrity chef Marco Pierre White, who launched Frankie’s Bar & Grill offering Italian fare at the Al Fattan Marine Towers and have continued this relationship with two outlets at the new Fairmont Bab Al Bahr in Abu Dhabi.

Al Maz by Momo, oddly located inside the Harvey Nicholls store at the Mall of the Emirates, is the Dubai branch of a famous Moroccan restaurant/club in London. Other outstanding shopping centre outlets include the Emporio Armani Caffe, serving Italian food in style at the Dubai Mall and at the Mall of the Emirates; and Switch at the Dubai Mall, which offers fusion cuisine in a space-age plastic interior environment by renowned interior designer, Karim Rashid.

Atlantis, The Palm has no less than four celebrity outlets: Nobu, Ossiano, Ronda Locatelli and Rostang The French Brasserie.

Asian Options

Dubai has a number of restaurants linked with Asian celebrities. Asha’s at the Pyramids in Wafi City was the first ‘contemporary Indian’ restaurant outlet of the chain to which the famous Indian movie singer gave her name. Indego at the Grosvenor House Hotel vaunts its Indian fusion from renowned Chef Vineet Bhatia. Options at the Dubai World Trade Centre is Indian celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor’s Dubai HQ.

Maya at Le Royal Méridien is the first Middle East outlet from New York celebrity Mexican fusion chef, Richard Sandoval. Among the most talked about new restaurants is Reflets par Pierre Gagnaire at the InterContinental Dubai Festival City, a top French fine dining destination with an outstanding sommelier to boot.

This is not to forget Dubai’s two most famous night clubs, the Buddha Bar, also at the Grosvenor House, and the new Cavalli Club at The Fairmont hotel. The latter is a 1500-capacity night club and sushi bar from the Italian fashion designer, complete with six-metre high Swarovski crystal-studded walls, now of course, draped with beautiful people.

Beyond Dubai

Outside Dubai, the trend is spreading. At the Al Bustan Palace, the hotel that launched international tourism in Oman, the new VUE by Shannon Bennett restaurant serves inspired French cuisine of the highest order. Bennett was voted Best Chef, and his restaurant, Vue de Monde, was crowned Restaurant of the Year at the 2009 Savour Australia National Awards for Excellence.

The most fêted hotel to open recently in Qatar is the W Doha. Its five, uber-trendy outlets include the Market by Jean-Georges, extraordinary because it has a celebrated fine dining chef — Jean-Georges Vongerichten — running an all day diner, which offers recipes like broiled shrimp salad with champagne vinaigrette as standard. The Spice Market at the same hotel is another of Chef Jean-Georges’ babies.

This trend appears to be underpinned by the existence of a fairly large niche market of genuine ‘foodies’ whose appreciation of such outlets goes beyond the mere following of fashion. The recent Taste of Dubai festival, for example, which took place on the lawn at Dubai Media City in March, garnered an audience of 12,000 over its four days.

The Jumeirah hotel chain’s BBC-televised Festival of Taste was a PR master-stroke. The five-day programme in November 2008 followed the experiences of celebrity chefs Ainsley Harriott, James Martin, Brian Turner, Michel Roux, Jean-Christophe Novelli and Cyrus Todiwala from the UK, as well as Kerry Heffernan from the US, during nine cooking events that took place in four Jumeirah hotels in Dubai.

Never to be outdone by Dubai, the UAE capital recently ran the Gourmet Abu Dhabi event, a 10-day ‘culinary odyssey’ presented by Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority, which featured a cast of eminent master chefs holding, between them, 24 Michelin stars and 40 headline events across 13 venues. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!