THE FOOD CULTURALIST
Arva Ahmed drives to Fujairah to shuck and gulp down locally grown oysters. And what chef Georgiy Danilov does with them is added bonus.
Arva Ahmed recounts a love story between Fujairah’s oysters and a passionate chef
As I watched Georgiy Danilov nestle the oyster meat back into its iridescent shell, I couldn’t help but think: This is a love story. No, there is no plotting villain, no family feud, no inconsolable heartache and no sappy ending. But there are oysters. There are oysters with the most seductively pouted lower lips.
Georgiy has no ordinary relationship with these oysters. He is the chef de cuisine at The Copper Lobster, a highly rated seafood restaurant at the Fairmont Fujairah Beach Resort in Dibba Bay. The restaurant’s ethos is eating local; 85 to 90 per cent of the fish served has been hauled off the fishing boats at Dibba Al Hisn fish market, auctioned at 6pm and bagged by the highest bidder. One of the bidders on the ground is The Copper Lobster’s own broker, who, along with their Emirati fish advisor, ensures that they’re hooked into the best catch at the market. Twenty minutes later, the fish have arrived at the restaurant, well in time for Georgiy’s 7pm dinner service.
Georgiy isn’t just flirting with the fad of eating local; this is a man committed to it for the long haul. And it doesn’t only apply to local fish. As a stark contrast to many seafood restaurants across the country that serve oysters flown in from thousands of miles away, the only oysters he serves have been scooped out 600 metres off the shores of Dibba Bay.
Three and a half years ago, an idea germinated in the mind of a Scotsman who had grown up in the UAE. He was inspired by the
growing awareness around marine life depletion and early talk of aquaculture in the region. An industrial designer by training, Ramie Murray toyed with the idea of ‘producing something, farming something that people are going to eat’ and zeroed in on oysters. After a successful pilot in Oman using the popular Pacific oyster species, he ‘scampered back home’ to the UAE and suspended his netted oyster ‘lanterns’ along the pristine eastern shores of the country in Dibba Bay. We met by his oyster processing cabins at the Fujairah port, Ramie with his Scottish checked scarf and I with my shamelessly unchecked appetite.
The word ‘terroir’ is fashionable these days. It represents the idea of ingredients like grass-fed beef conveying the essence of the land that mothered it. Oysters are delicate expressions of terroir; Ramie claims that their flavour, for the most part, is ‘at the mercy of nature.’ For instance, nurturing oysters on the westerly shores would have produced a markedly different oyster, the waters of the Arabian Gulf being saltier and warmer than those of the Gulf of Oman. This is why oyster farmers he met around the world would qualify their advice with the disclaimer, ‘we can tell you what we do, but we have no idea what you’ve got to do!’
Ramie’s answer would soon wash up along the shores of Dibba Bay. It turned out that the consistently warm water temperature catalyses oyster growth, making them grow in eight to nine months to a size that would take about two years in cooler European waters. The oysters are also more ‘meaty than buttery;’ they don’t weather an unforgiving winter where they need to pack on the fatty glycogen coats of their European cousins.
As my mind started to compute the immense business opportunity that Ramie had tapped into with his Dibba Bay brand of oysters, he pulled out a shucker from his back pocket and cracked open a massive No. 2 graded oyster (66-85g). He poured off the initial briny seawater, revealing its delicate body cuddled in the shell like a plump, silky, rehydrated shiitake.
I cupped the opened oyster in my palm, its lower half staring back at me with same seductive pout I had seen in Georgiy’s kitchen. Unlike the flat oysters we typically see on the half shell over ice, this one dips into a curve reminiscent of the beak of a seagull. The shape is the handiwork of Ramie’s team; the oysters are periodically removed from the farm, sorted, graded, and tumbled through a clinking roller that trims off flimsy ‘nails’ prodding out of the shell. Ramie personally designed the roller, manicuring his oysters into growing deep cups that hold 20-30 per cent more meat on average compared to an imported oyster.
All the grooming required within the compressed growing timeframe is undoubtedly more work, especially for such a small scale farm. But this is an ongoing labour of love and Ramie thrives on the joy of making things. For instance, rather than invest in big oyster barges from France, he has re-purposed local fishing boats. One of them was a work-in-progress when I visited the port.
As I slurped up that first oyster, my senses instantly plunged into the overwhelmingly briny waters of the bay. I was tasting Fujairah.
To fall deeply in love with your food, you need to understand the stories, the people and the context behind the plate. This is why Fairmont offers passionate eaters the opportunity to follow the journey from Ramie’s underwater farm to Georgiy’s plate on their table. As I watched the thick trail of cherry wood smoke swirling around Georgiy’s experimental oyster tartare, its voluptuous meat dressed with sriracha and ponzu-marinated hazelnuts, I realised how serendipitous it was that Dibba Bay Oysters had launched less than 10km down the road from the Fairmont. Ramie’s oysters provide a robust canvas for Georgiy’s artistic interpretation, their supple, fleshy bodies and higher salinity providing unique accents to experiment with at the chef’s table. Yet, for all the poetic license the oysters encourage, they still retain the murmuring essence of the ocean outside the restaurant. A match made in heaven.
Oysters are delicate expressions of terrior; Ramie claims that their flavour, for the most part, is ‘at the mercy of nature’
Arva Ahmed guides tours through Dubai’s culinary hideouts at fryingpanadventures.com. She co-hosts a food podcast at fryingpan.fm.