Brunch doesn’t always equate to elegant, but try the Jumeirah Zabeel Saray’s and you’ll feel like you’ve gone from Dubai to Versailles in a matter of minutes.
It helps that Imperium, the location for the weekly French food blowout, strikes a good balance between ostentation and elegance; with endless rows of gold-topped columns, dark furniture and enough swags to satisfy a pre-Revolutionary king.
So right off the bat, you’ll feel pretty royal in the surroundings, but it’s also intimate and romantic, especially if you are able to nab one of the tables right near the window, which have partial seaviews and are slightly away from the larger groups of diners.
You’re welcomed with a drink as you swan past the live band, who play soothing renditions of French classics as you plough through the French food classics at the buffet.
As you tour the offerings, you’re faced with options of a gigantic beef rib roast, whole cooked salmon (cold and in pastry), oysters being shucked and foie gras being pan-fried; and one of the best cheese and bread stations I’ve seen in a while.
In a nice twist, there is also a menu of dishes that you can order from your table, should the buffet walk become too much. The staff are lovely and knowledgeable, although my beef tartare did take a while to deliver, it was spot-on: spicy (as requested) and full of flavour, with the raw steak cut by hand. Other dishes on that menu this past weekend included pan-fried salmon and roasted baby chicken.
However the buffet is top-notch, replenished and offers items not always seen, such as a flavourful salmon coulibaic, a Russian-origin dish of salmon fillet surrounded by egg, mushrooms and spinach in puff pastry, with a hollandaise sauce on the side. It was a double-trip dish, as was the seabass Nicoise, the flavourful white fish cooked with salty little black olives, green beans, potatoes and tomatoes.
Seafood is a major attraction at Imperium’s brunch, with another winner being the house-made gravadlax, salmon cured with salt, sugar and dill, served with slices of fragrant sourdough bread and lashings of butter (luckily, with all that salmon, I got all my Omega-3s).
A table is piled with cooked cold prawns, clams, salads and cocktail sauces, while sweet, juicy Normandy lobster is grilled and served with a selection of sauces. Garlic aioli was advertised, but sadly we couldn’t find it, so stuck with lemon juice — truly, the lobster is so tasty it needs nothing more.
Dessert includes a super-moist walnut cake not to be missed, and plenty of fun for little ones with a DIY frozen yoghurt machine and toppings (they also have their own buffet). With some of France’s best cheeses on offer, I skipped the sweets in favour of Comte, Reblochon, and some seriously pungent ones I’d never met before but will be revisting soon — not that you need an excuse to return to this brunch.
