This Italian pizzeria — founded in Naples hundreds of years ago — is the latest international restaurant to choose The Dubai Mall as it open its doors for the first time outside native soil. I wanted to visit Brandi for a couple of reasons: I have very fond memories of eating copious amounts of excellent, simple pizza in Naples; and I didn’t want to wait for an hour for a table at Cheesecake Factory.
Brandi is very newly opened, as evidenced by the information point staffers not knowing about it, despite the restaurant being just a couple of escalators away. It’s rather hidden away on the top floor, overlooking The Address’ swimming pool and some of the Dubai Fountain (it’s next to TGI Friday’s, above Dean and Deluca).
Brandi, apparently, invented the margherita pizza in the late 1800s, when the restaurant’s chef was invited to cook something for the Italian queen of the same name. Inspired by the country’s flag, he took the Neapolitan pizza dough and topped it with fresh red tomato sauce, the milky white mozzarella made in the region and green fragrant basil leaves. It was named a Margherita, and has been abused by pizza makers ever since.
Brandi’s is an authentic example (Dh42) — a chewy, thin dough, puffed around the edges with the occasional charring that comes from a traditional open oven that’s situated in the restaurant. The tomato sauce tastes like pure, fresh tomato — not a thick, sugared sauce that’s often the case in pizza. According to the menu, the mozzarella used is called “fior de latte” — meaning it’s made with cow’s milk, not buffalo (that’s a distinction important in Italy, where both kinds are widely available). It’s the wet, milky kind, not that terrible conveyor-belt mozzarella that comes grated, and is dotted around the surface rather than blanketing the pizza. This is a good, simple pizza and one we should all try once in a while, when we’ve eaten too many BBQ chicken or five-meat pizzas — just celebrate simplicity.
However, the tuna salad my dining partner ordered was simplicity of the wrong kind — a pile of undressed lettuce, cherry tomatoes and a few mozzarella balls with a miserly sprinkling of canned tuna — a disappointing amount considering its Dh38 price tag.
The atmosphere of the restaurant also suffers from the layout — it’s a very strangely designed space, where the checked tablecloths contrast with the cavernous room. Windows should line one wall, but instead they are blocked by huge grey structural triangles; I couldn’t work out if they were necessary to support the roof of the mall, or some kind of architectural feature, but they lend a dark, industrial feel to the place.
Where: Brandi, The Dubai Mall, second level
Must-have: Margherita pizza
Atmosphere: Italian family day out
Decor: Checked tablecloths in a very big room
Rating: 2/5
