DUBAI: Reviewing a restaurant like Rhodes W1 is by no means an easy task. It calls for a fine balance between savouring every bit of what its celebrated Masterchef Gary Rhodes has to offer and attempting to reflect on the experience without sounding ludicrous. So when I recently visited the upscale restaurant at Grosvenor House in Dubai Marina with my partner, my own expectations ran high.
It was a perfect setting as we were led to a table overlooking Dubai’s glittering skyline on one side and the open kitchen on the other.
After sifting through what we were told was a revamped menu, we picked beetroot and goat cheese salad and scallops and prawns for starters. We were served a complimentary white tomato soup before the starters arrived. Just as I wondered why something so delicious was not listed on the menu, one of the staff told me how popular it was with the restaurant’s guests. As it turns out, I was among many others who actually had a suggestion to give to Rhodes: to include a sizeable serving of the delectable soup on the menu.
Sheer goodness
The beetroot and goat cheese salad was served with kohlrabi (a stout cultivar of cabbage) and avocado mousse. It made for a curious mix and tasted of sheer goodness. The scallops and prawns that followed were a tad bland for my tatstebuds but there was no mistaking their freshness.
For mains, my partner decided to go with the chef’s recommendation of a lamb cutlet while I settled for wild mushroom and hazelnut macaroni.
A far cry from any basic macaroni I have ever eaten, this dish was a treat, thanks to the hazelnut and truffle twist. Smeared with marjoram sauce (pine and sweet citrus flavour), the lamb cutlets too were nothing like what my partner had tasted before.
For dessert, we were tempted to ask for for Rhodes’ hugely famous sticky toffee pudding but settled for a poached peach melba, a sundae-like dish which came with fresh raspberries and pistachio ice-cream. The seemingly disparate ingredients blended amazingly well.
At the end of the fine dining experience, we realised it was not for nothing that Rhodes was revered as a “chef’s chef” and why his restaurants, including an erstwhile Rhodes WI in the Cumberland Hotel in Marble Arch, had fetched him five Michelin Stars.
Details:
Meal for two: Dh400
Where: Grosvenor House, Dubai Marina
Timing: 7pm–midnight
Contact: 04-317 6000
