DELECTO REVIEWED

A café, sweet shop and bakery rolled into one

Delecto, a new café just off the Corniche in Al Khalidiyah, is an outlet with a split personality. At first glance, it just looks like a huge sweet shop, but it’s also a bakery and a café. You can visit to buy a cake or a box of artisan chocolates, or grab some croissants, bread or a sourdough pizza cooked in its huge ovens. Or you could dine in and grab a more substantial meal, as it also serves breakfast, lunch and dinner.

It’s a huge venue, inspired by Europeanstyle cafés and bakeries, the official company spiel says, although its white brickwork and touches of gold (think exposed piping), plus white and brown leather chairs actually had us thinking art deco. There’s plenty to look at, including the cakes (they make everything from handbags to Spider-Man’s head and the characters from Angry Birds) and sweets, plus some unique touches, such as a selection of colourful plates, coming in all shapes and size, lining one wall. Delecto is a huge, classy looking venue.

The appetisers are mainly Middle Eastern, while the mains cover Italy (pizza and pasta), the Middle East again (shish tawook and mixed grills), burgers, and finally Asia (teriyaki salmon, for example). It also has a sushi selection, not to mention a big breakfast section.

What’s On visited during an evening and kicked off proceedings with the hot mezze platter, plus a portion of falafels. The mezze featured the usual suspects – cheese rolls, lamb sambusek, kibbeh and spinach fatayer – with the highlights being the slightly sweet sambusek and the rolls, which weren’t overly salty. The falafels, topped with a generous coating of sesame seeds, seemed a little overcooked on the outside but were soft and light underneath.

For mains, try the salmon teriyaki – the fish was fluffy and the sauce-to-meat ratio was bang on; not too little, not too much. Curiously, it also came with a lemon butter that brought nothing to the party but confusion. Skip that if you visit. A side of creamy spinach (that actually benefited from not being too creamy) gave the dish another boost. A second main of spinach and ricotta ravioli has potential but skimped on the cheese, although its tomato sauce was rich and satisfying.

One thing that Delecto needs to improve is the service. Staff are friendly, but our falafels arrived almost ten minutes after our mezze, and our pasta main arrived five minutes after the salmon. Five minutes is actually a long time for one diner to stare at their dish. We visited during Ramadan and the outlet was quiet, so there’s no excuse for not serving them at the same time.

There’s plenty to like about Delecto and most of the dishes are of a good standard. Fine-tune the few that need a bit of TLC and sort out the timings and you’re onto a winner.

Al Bateen Street, Al Khalidiyah, Abu Dhabi, daily 7am to midnight. Tel: (02) 4963444. Taxi: CI Tower, Al Bateen Street near Children’s Garden, delectouae.ae