Miami meets the Roaring 20s by way of Africa in an Insta-perfect, clean-eating trance? Poised elegantly at the intersection of those ideas is the Flamingo Room by Tashas, the hottest, shiniest trendiest corner in South Dubai and the latest addition to Jumeirah Al Naseem’s turtle lagoon.
Whether by chance or design, South African entrepreneur Natasha Sideris’ new venture perfectly serves our fragmented attention spans — as a quick social media check shows (Dubai Crown Prince Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum has already been, of course). You can swoop in for a bite, a beverage, a bit of inspiration, some retail therapy, because you like the music, or rather like Facebook, all of them at once. Sure, it’s first and foremost an all-day restaurant, but with a bijou-box shop on the premises, a calendar of designer talks, and a DJ in the house, it’s also much more.
Sideris — the Tasha behind Tashas — says she wanted to create a space that occupies the niche “between feeling special enough but also casual enough to come and dine often at a reasonable price point at any time of day.” Rock up in your kaftan or sit down to dinner in smart shorts — she’s cool with either, but not with wet bathing suits, cigars or pipes, as the restaurant’s website warns.
“In terms of the food, I wanted to create a clean, simple relaxed dining experience, even though the venue is quite crazy in terms of its interiors,” Sideris continues, talking to Gulf News tabloid! ahead of the restaurant’s opening. “That’s missing in Dubai — there’s a lot of high-end fine dining or a lot of mass. But not a chic, private dining experience with classic food and where you’re relaxed like it’s your home — that’s what I wanted to create.”
As it says in the name, the Flamingo Room is a business-class version of Tashas, with a rarefied, luxury resort positioning — familiar but swankier with the Tashas’ DNA embedded in contemporary ingredients cleverly paired together.
A vast floral ceiling fixture that wouldn’t be out of place on the label of a fine vintage dominates the centre of the restaurant, designed in tones of peach and pink and gold, by Sideris’ longtime associates, B&S Studio. It’s filled with quirky little touches — a life-size flamingo perched on a gilded bar over here, three little bronze meerkats on a marble counter there, the odd zebra chair around the room, hand-embroidered cushions from Africa everywhere. More of these are in the adjoining shop, which can be rented for parties.
The menu has classic ideas (rib eye with herb butter, fatty carpaccio and Parmesan shavings) and the new familiars (burrata and tomatoes, quinoa and beetroot salad), but the oomph comes from the more exotic fare (calamari Mozambique with Peri Peri sauce, or butternut carpaccio with a lemon vinaigrette).
Don’t be surprised either, to bump into Sideris at the venue. Every inch the affable impresario, she’s on site regularly at this early stage in the eatery’s lifecycle, schmoozing with diners and keeping a new mother’s eye on everything. A self-confessed Type A personality with a need for control, Sideris says she’s “150 per cent involved” in the Flamingo Room — although she also runs 17 venues across South Africa and three others in the UAE. With 200 covers across 574 square metres and operational indoors and out, over breakfast through dinner, the new venue promises plenty of challenges. “I’ll be based in Dubai for the next four months instead of remotely managing it from far away,” she says, in what is also a sign of her commitment to the Emirates.
In sheer numbers, the first Tashas — at the Galleria Mall — clocked up $3 million (Dh11 million) in start-up costs, she told Biznews.com, including expenditure that wouldn’t be part of a normal set-up elsewhere, such as training, flying staff over from South Africa and visa fees. Some of that outlay can be rationalised over a larger operation in the UAE so it makes sense she’s planning to open three new concepts over the next 18 months in addition to the Tashas cafes already operational in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
First off the block is likely to be a bar/casual dining concept where La Luz used to be in the Dubai International Financial Centre. Her business partner already has the space, her contribution will be to offer something that the dining village doesn’t already have. “What we’re going to do will be 90 per cent different, with 10 per cent of our DNA coming through,” she says in her beautiful South African accent.
“If you’re having a breakfast meeting in the DIFC, where you gonna go? There’s only one or two places and it’s either downstairs in the dungeon or fine dining. There’s nothing in between that’s accessible and reasonably priced, where you can put your feet up. So we want to get a reputation for filling that sweet spot a little,” she explains (it’s an idea she comes back to again and again). Scheduled for December — but as Sideris says, that could move to early 2018 — the as-yet-unnamed site will bring a little Mediterranean rusticity to the flash district.
Next year she will also open what she calls “Tashas’ tiny baby” at the Al Jalila Cultural Centre. “It’ll be a fantastic little cafe — obviously unlicensed — that’s geared towards the kids and to the mums on the school run,” she explains. “So it’ll have coffee, obviously, and a big focus on healthy food for children, with fun, rocking interiors.”
A third concept (and Tashas outlets) could happen too, but there’s nothing concrete to talk about yet. “We’re going to put the big handbrake on for a bit after that, ’cause we’ll be growing at a much faster pace than we had in South Africa. We’ve got to be really careful that we don’t topple over. So maybe we’ll just do one towards the end of next year but the rest of the time will be spent consolidating the products.”
Sideris appears detail-oriented and unlike many others in it for the franchise fee, she’s insistent that she will not take shortcuts. She says she spent two months just training staff for the first Tashas. “I told my business partner we needed to train for two months. He said, you mean two weeks. I said, no, two months!,” she laughs. “Two weeks and he’s ready to eat!”
The same sort of fastidiousness extends to other aspects of the business. It took her two years to decide on her first location in the UAE, she says, before finally ending up on Al Wasl Road. Even within the Tashas brand, each location is customised for the type of clients it aims to attract, she says. A classic menu extends across all locations, but changed up as needed — as is visible across the South African stores.
And when it comes to the food, she confesses that her chefs hate her. “They would like a lot of mise en place, to get the food out quicker and easier, but it’s not our philosophy and never has been. Maybe 5 to 10 per cent of the food needs to be done in advance, like a good bolognaise or ragu — but otherwise, if you order a fruit salad, we’ll take the fruit, cut it on the spot and put it in the bowl for you. Everything’s made to order.”
Perhaps that pernicketiness is what makes her ventures work. That, and being able to find and exploit an unserved niche, or sweet spot.
