AI Chefs To Sea Monsters, How Dubai Is Spending Big Money To Make Drama Out Of Dining

By the time you're done reading this far, Dubai will have seen a dozen fine-dining restaurant launches and a bagful of Michelin stars to its name. But beyond those stars are culinary stars transforming Dubai into an epicurean haven. They are using technology, blending it with fantasy to create a spectacle that feels more theatre than dining. Chefs whip up experiments with the finesse of a magician, and a cosmopolitan crowd is only too happy to whiz in and out in their Rolls-Royces to bite into the city's finest.

The only problem you will find in this city is that of plenty. Champagne problems, with a side of seafood that makes you swoon, creations that send your mind spinning, and innovations that are as diverse as the crowd in Dubai.

Stepping Into The Future With AI Chefs

Over three days last December, I had the opportunity to experience some of Dubai's finest new food experiments. At Woohoo, among Dubai's most-talked-about restaurants at the moment, the atmosphere is what you pay for. A futuristic, AI-inspired dining destination, Woohoo is located inside Kempinski The Boulevard in downtown. A peek outside the window shows you a twinkling Burj Khalifa.

Inside Woohoo in Dubai. Photo: Woohoo

Inside, you step into 'the future', where you meet a bar 'born between science and soul'. The cocktail menu derives inspiration from David Lynch's Dune, the existential choices of Red Pill and Blue Pill from The Matrix, and a message sent to the universe aboard the Voyager. The bar's imagination of a reply to that message takes the form of a cocktail called 'The Voyager Reply'.

(L-R) Drinks, food, and desserts at Woohoo are all from 'space'. Photos: Author

The restaurant-cum-shisha lounge blends crazy culinary creativity with a global menu, and tops it off with its highlight: an AI 'chef' - Chef Aiman - imagining dishes that don't really exist. What that means: something like a 'Mesopotamya Gyoza' or 'Dinosaur Tartar'. No, there are no real dinosaurs who lent their meat to be minced into the tartar, but an AI understanding of what it would have tasted like, with ingredients that are available in a post-Jurassic world.

A Sci-Fi Show And A Portal From Star Trek

Every half an hour, there's a 'message from the future' played out across the walls of Woohoo. The bar transforms into a sci-fi show, complete with smoke, sound and theatrics that end with an ominous message from a humanoid: "Stop asking what machines can do. Start asking what humans can."

Next to the main seating area is hidden a portal. Step inside this mirrored 'elevator', named Spock as a tribute to the eponymous Star Trek icon, to step out into the private corner at Woohoo. The place looks like a spaceship. At Dubai's first AI-themed restaurant, it's a miracle the team ever gets anything done instead of being taken by this dance of the future in front of them.

Tribute To A Sea Monster

What Woohoo does with the future, Kraken does with the traditional and the timeless. A new entrant on the culinary scene in Dubai, Kraken borrows its name from the mysterious and legendary sea monster from Norse mythology. The restaurant is done up like Kraken's cave, where you enter and find yourself lost at sea.

The Kraken kitchen decor isn't for the faint-hearted. Photo: Author

The co-creator of Kraken, Chef Gregoire Berger, was formerly the head chef at the world-famous Ossiano, Atlantis The Palm's Michelin-star seafood restaurant. Along with Badr Benaryane, the Ossiano alum stepped out of that aquarium for a new aqua dream on Al Wasl Street in Jumeirah 2. 

The restaurant's focus is local sourcing, and the Kraken team goes out fishing, literally, on an eponymous boat, for the catch of the day. The seafood is line-caught and prepared using the Japanese 'ikejime' technique (which uses a direct brain spike and destruction of the spinal cord to paralyse the fish and prevent stress), the 'most humane' of fish slaughtering around.

'Tomato' at Kraken. Photo: Instagram/Kraken

The kitchen decor isn't for the faint-hearted. It has fish of various sizes, in various levels of carving, hanging from the ceiling as the chefs go about creating an oceanic fantasy for lunch and dinner every day.

A Ten-Course Meal With Crab In A Coffee Cup

The food at Kraken follows 'nature's rhythm': two parts sea, one part land, with over 70% of the ingredients sourced locally. There's no alcohol to dull your tastebuds at Kraken. Their drinks are zero-proof or kombucha renditions that taste fresh but not boring.

What's for dinner? Photos: Author

A ten-course tasting menu at Kraken combines the best that Chef Berger has on offer, taste and drama alike. The bare-bones card in front of you doesn't betray a hint of what the next course is, save for listing its name. 'Snacks', 'Oyster', 'Tomato', 'Pizza', 'Cobia Sashimi', 'Blue Crab', 'Squid', 'King Fish', 'Granita', 'Krok Mr', and 'Wild Strawberry': basic names that are laid out in front of you after quite a fashion. 

Take the 'Blue Crab', for example. No, you won't find the crustacean on your plate. Instead, this course arrives as a cup of 'Crabuccino'. Crab soup that caresses your palate before gliding down your throat.

'Crabuccino', or blue crab in a cup. Photo: Author

Charcoal grilling is at the core of Kraken. A trolley featuring a variety of housemade pickles is rolled out during the course of your ten-course meal. It works perfectly as the taste-breaker before you move on to the mains.

Luxury By The Beach, In The Citadel Of Luxury

On the other end of town from Kraken, inside the citadel of luxury called Atlantis The Royale, is Nobu By The Beach. The globally renowned Nobu experience is taken to a stunning oceanfront setting on the Palm Jumeirah. Atlantis The Royale, which has opulence dripping from every inch, serves as just the perfect stage for a brand as iconic as Nobu.

At Nobu By The Beach, Atlantis The Royale. Photos: Author

Nobu's Japanese-Peruvian creations meet the laid-back spirit of a beach club here. There are revellers, there's music, there's the beat. Its world-famous black cod miso, signature sushi and sashimi are complemented by views of the blue gulf. Leisurely lunches that stretch into sunset, with the Japanese wizard's innovations laid out in front of you, this outpost of Nobu combines Dubai's elegance with Matsuhisa's mastery.

French Flair And All That's Fair

From the Palm to Nikki Beach up next, where Maison Mer, a new coastal restaurant promises the best of sunny Provence. Here, at the 'House By The Sea' you are transported to the French Riviera with breezy seaside views. The outdoor seating opens to sweeping scenes of the beach, with an occasional floating car bobbing on the water.

Tucked along the shores of the Pearl Jumeira, within Nikki Beach Resort and Spa, Maison Mer encapsulates the French Mediterranean within its walls. The dishes celebrate fresh produce with drinks that take as much precision as composing a perfume.

Maison Mer celebrates French food. Photos: Author

The menu is shaped by France-based corporate executive chef Alessandro Pizza, whose two decades of living and cooking in the South of France seep into every dish. The region's flavours and its devotion to pristine produce are right on top of the agenda here. 

On site, head chef Kavish Chimajee brings that vision to life with a daily, hands-on presence, ensuring Provencal perfection on the plate as well as in a glass.

Fire It Up

Our last dinner in Dubai is reserved for a very special restaurant: Ina, on a Bentley-lined boulevard on the J1 beach in Jumeirah. The word means 'light' or 'fire' in Yoruba (Nigeria/West Africa), and the restaurant is built around that very term.

The warm orange interiors at Ina. Photo: Author

Ina's interiors are done up in warm orange, with Nigerian motifs running through the restaurant. It is focussed on primal, open-fire cooking, crafted in flame and inspired by nature, with a lot of emphasis on traditional Nigerian fare.

Food at Ina is a tribute to West African cuisine. Photos: Author

A bowl of oven-baked crab rice sets the tone for our evening here: it is as comforting as a mother's touch. A whole Greek seabass, grilled to perfection, is a standout from among the menu. 

Ina is a produce-led grill restaurant led by Chef Glen Ballis. The alfresco setting captures Dubai's breezy beach culture, with food that ranges from seafood to the best beef cuts, brought to you to see and choose before the meat is sent to the grill. 

Theatre On Your Plate (And In Your Glass) 

From octopus to oysters, from seabass to snapper; seafood is a speciality at Ina, as are their cocktails. The cocktails are a veritable work of art, each a tribute to an Orisha, or a divine spirit created by the supreme entity, Olodumare, in Yoruban mythology. Each Orisha was entrusted with a specific domain. Embers, the 'fiery heart, soul and burning essence of Ina' is easily the most striking of the cocktails; and true to its character, comes with quite a performance.

Creme brulee, torched with a plate. Photos: Author

The dinner is rounded off with a three-person portion of creme brulee, torched in front of you with a steam plate, keeping the theatre intact.

In Dubai, food is no longer meant to be eaten and forgotten. It is meant to dazzle, to provoke, to leave you slightly breathless, jaw slightly agape. Whether it is an AI chef crafting recipes from a long-buried past, or a cocktail born from fire and myth, your plate and your drink are a rebellion against anonymity. And that's what makes Dubai so special. Dining here is not merely a pursuit of Michelin stars. It ends with astonishment.

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