The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
TWO MICHELIN STAR WINNERS
Despite the recent death of his 24-yearold son, Antoine, a budding chef, Yannick Alléno managed to join his Dubai attaché Renaud Dutel at the Michelin awards. Alléno’s young chef de cuisine choked back tears as he accepted Stay’s two Michelin stars.
As culinary director of One&Only The Palm, Alléno is a guiding hand for Dutel who has truly mastered the art of French cooking. His skill is evident in dishes such as the courgette flower stuffed with sea bass mousseline, so light it almost levitates. The sea bass is whipped into a mousse with cream and egg white, and steamed inside the courgette’s petals then set on a bed of lobster bisque. (My husband told me to be careful not to wipe the pattern off the plate as I mopped up the sauce.)
Versions of dishes from Yannick’s three-Michelin-starred Alléno Paris au Pavillon Ledoyen can also be sampled here. The signature langoustine and caviar tartlet with a warm lemon butter sauce is spiked with a hint of ginger.
Degustation menus from £145; oneandonlyresorts.com
IL RISTORANTE-NIKO ROMITO
Bulgari Resort Dubai
A magnet for billionaires, Bulgari Resort Dubai is home to not one but two Michelin-starred restaurants. (See below for more on its one-star offering, Hoseki.) Normally, I’d skip aperitivo, saving my daily calorie allowance for pasta, but at the Il Ristorante-Niko Romito bar, director Dario Schiavoni is making a name for himself – and not just because of his fabulous Poirot-style moustache.
Schiavoni’s signature martini is a fine example of his craft. Served in a coupe glass with a foot-long stem, the bowl is decorated with sticky gem-like daubs of “beetroot perfume” before a crystal-clear mix of gin and sake is added. It’s the Fabergé egg of cocktails with floral notes that smack of Arabian rose water.
Dinner is precision Italian fine dining, elevating the humble tomato at every turn. Besides the amuse-bouche of vibrant red gazpacho dressed in polka dots of amber olive oil, highlights include the buxomly al dente linguine with sweet and silky red shrimp and lobster laced with punchy bisque, and the burrata cream-filled tortellini, which could be Italy’s answer to xiao long bao. Menus are devised by Niko Romito of Reale fame. Effervescent protégé Giacomo Amicucci executes their production on a day-to-day basis. When Amicucci took to the stage to accept his restaurant’s stars, his team watched the live feed of the Michelin reveal back at the hotel. Chairs, limbs, tears and yelps of joy went flying when Amicucci took to the stage.