For reasons we’re not quite sure of, the Thursday evening brunch – or any evening brunch for that matter – never seems to have garnered much traction with the booze-loving expat demographic in these parts, most preferring to lose their Friday day (and Saturday, given the usual aftermath) to the all-you-can-eat and-drink cause instead.
As such, we at Esquire have always kept our ear to the ground where this vastly underrated evening concept is concerned, so when we learnt of the shiny new Sofitel Downtown’s fairly eclectic stab at one – it immediately climbed to the top of our to do list.
While ‘fusion’ cuisine has been done practically to death on the restaurant circuit here in Dubai, the Sofitel Downtown adopts a somewhat different strategy to the marrying of two different food types for it’s Thursday brunch offering. Held in the Red Grill restaurant – the hotel’s flagship steakhouse adorned with purple faux cow print seats and grand tables that spill out on to the terrace – the premise is once more, eat and drink as much as you like, but centered around an a-la-carte menu that includes the best dishes from both the Red Grill and the neighbouring Thai restaurant, Green Spices.
While you probably wouldn’t consider these two cuisines a particularly natural match, somehow it works. All the dishes are uniformly enjoyable – with the Australian Angus rib eye and Talay Pad Prink Pao warranting special mention – and the manageable portion sizes mean that ordering en-masse is all to easily encouraged. Service is efficient, staff are attentive, patient and never need to be asked twice. A rarity in the majority of restaurants in Dubai, particularly on the brunch scene.
Granted, the fairly reserved nature of this particular brunch means it won’t threaten to pull the party-hardened expats away from their all singing-all dancing brunch sanctuaries at Saffron or Bubblicious, but that’s clearly not the intention here. Instead, it should be considered a relaxed evening aimed at you and the wife, or a small group of friends, ideal for a post-week wind down where a bit of light indulgence is the order of the day. And for the incredibly reasonable price of AED290 per person, it should really be one of your places to try in 2015.
AED 220 per person
AED 290 inclusive of unlimited house beverages
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