PEARLS BY MICHAEL CAINES

Another celebrity chef sets up shop in Abu Dhabi

It was a sad day in the What’s On office when Jumeirah At Etihad Towers told us they were closing Scott’s, their British seafood restaurant, a few months back. But they promised us we’d be as equally impressed by its replacement, which finally opened last month.

Yet again, there’s an English influence at Pearls By Michael Caines. The chef who has his name above the door is from Devon, in the southwest of England, and he’s the head chef of Gidleigh Park, a Tudor-style house and award-winning hotel and eatery. His restaurant there has two Michelin stars.

Jumeirah has decided to keep the décor pretty much how it was when the outlet was Scott’s (think huge curved windows, large chandeliers, cream sofas and golden touches everywhere) and simply let the new dishes do the talking.

It’s an international menu with so many unique options on it, you’ll need a few minutes to get your head around them. To start, both the watermelon, smoked tomato and burrata salad, and the roast quail with mushroom risotto, rocked, especially the latter, thanks to a slightly crisp skin on the meat and the rich, salty (but not too salty) rice with quail jus. The salad was fresh, and the watermelon cleverly cut to look like tomatoes. Both were well presented. The mains also delivered – the soft flaky flesh of the salt cod got the thumbs up thanks to a crab mousse and smoked red pepper foam. There’s not many options for veggies but the poached duck egg with lentils was a good one. The cinnamonspiced lentils added texture, and each mouthful offered different flavours.

If we’ve one moan, it was that the desserts were decent but didn’t reach the heights of the first two courses. The chocolate orange confit mousse with orange sorbet was a mixed bag. The chocolate was sensational yet the orange, outer coating and sorbet on the side overpowered it. The banana parfait suffered a similar fate – served with salted peanuts and lime confit sorbet, there was too much going on. Unlike the duck egg main, this time less would have been more.

Overall though, it’s a good start for Pearls, made even better by clued-up, slick staff and a fantastic venue.

Jumeirah At Etihad Towers, Al Khubeirah, Ras Al Akhdar, Abu Dhabi, daily noon to midnight. Tel: (02) 8115555. Taxi: Etihad Towers. jumeirah.com