One&Only Za'abeel, the hotel that puts gastronomy on a higher plane

What if, in a world-city like Dubai, the only subject that could bring together and unite dozens of different nationalities was gastronomy? That's what Philippe Zuber, CEO of luxury hotel group Kerzner International, is betting on. When the project for an urban, vertical resort was launched, he immediately thought that the winning idea would be to create a hub for haute gastronomy. "Dubai was ripe. After breaking codes, importing all available licenses, welcoming a few big names who had wiped the slate clean - and a few failures - and starting to imagine - and export - its own concepts, Dubai was finally mature enough to host true fine dining."

"The perfect alchemy

It took seven years to bring to life what could have passed for a pipe dream: to bring together world-renowned and up-and-coming chefs in the same place, and to offer them a setting worthy of their talents - by which I mean without the excesses one might have expected. For seven years, Philippe Zuber works with the chefs to create the "perfect alchemy". The casting? " It was a matter of meeting new people and finding what they wanted. We won't know more, but when we listen to the seven chefs selected - Anne-Sophie Pic, Mehmet Gürs, the Dylan Jones/Bo Songvisava duo, Tetsuya Wakuda, Paco Morales and Dabiz Muñoz - it's clear that this isn't just another out-of-home restaurant for them. It 's an extension of themselves, thanks to the creation of dedicated, well-trained teams and a real commitment. Each with their own desires, cultures and convictions. At the time of the launch, we like to believe in it.

Restaurants perched 100 metres high

Set between the two faces of Dubai - the Old Quarter on one side, Downtown on the other - between low-rise mud houses and the Burj Khalifa - the world's tallest tower, built in 2008 - the One Za'abeel, designed by Japanese studio Nikken Sekkei, boasts a rather radical architecture. Two towers of 68 and 58 storeys respectively, one of which houses the One&Only One Za'abeel hotel (and also the Siro One Za'abeel, the Kerzner Group's new chain); between the two, at a height of 100 metres, the world's longest cantilevered building, The Link. It's in this 226-metre-long XXL link that almost everything is played out. In his restaurant Qabu, Spanish chef Paco Morales (Noor, Cordoba) is undoubtedly the one with the clearest link to the United Arab Emirates. With his cuisine inspired by the ancestral culture of Andalusia - before the Reconquista - he "constructs a new language, where all the senses must be awakened. Qabu must be much more than a place to eat." Located on the corner of The Link, this restaurant makes great demands on sight; with its "Karim" ("generous", in Arabic) of pistachios, taste and smell are also largely so. At DuangDy, it's not just about putting Thailand in the spotlight. "We also wanted to show that it's possible to think about and implement a perfectly responsible cuisine, even in Dubai.This is already the case for chicken, eggs and vegetables," says Bangkok's star duo Bo.Lan, made up of Thai Bo Songvisava and Australian Dylan Jones. It may sound like a pious wish in Dubai, but here too, we want to believe in them and follow their lead.

The highly influential Finnish-Turkish chef Mehmet Gürs (3 toques in the Gault&Millau Turkey for the Istanbul restaurant Mikla, which he has just sold), for his part, wanted to "highlight at Arrazuna a cuisine that is far more sophisticated and complex than it appears. e and complex than it appears, interpreting ancestral Turkish recipes without superfluous effects, of course, but also Syrian, Lebanese and Persian". He has also imagined a food court where you can get the best of the Fertile Crescent's produce. "It's the only restaurant in the Middle East where you can buy wine, including a Syrian one [The grapes are Syrian, but this wine is actually vinified in Lebanon, Editor's note]!" As for Tetsuya Wakuda, famous in Sydney and accustomed to hotel projects (Marina Bay Sands in Singapore and Venetian Las Vegas), he was approached by the late Sol Kerzner, the group's founder, already ten years ago. The Japanese-born Australian chef sees this mega-project as "a way to inspire each other, to create a real emulation", even if his Sagetsu table remains undeniably Japanese - he has everything delivered from Japan, twice a week.

A new gastronomic hub

This puts paid to the efforts of some to imagine a more responsible gastronomy in the city-state. At La Dame de Pic, Anne-Sophie Pic (4 G&M toques in Valence) "has succeeded, and intends to do even more and better, in integrating a strong terroir through local and organic producers". In her famous berlingots, she adds pollen grains from Dubai; in these others, camel milk cheese... "It'scertainly not a question of copying and pasting, but of understanding and adapting, with a great deal of humility." Dabiz Muñoz (Diver XO, Madrid), the enfant terrible of the Iberian scene, is the only chef to force us to leave The Link. Set up as close as possible to the garden-level swimming pool - there's another, perched on the roof of The Link, which offers a striking view of the skyline - he offers his wacky version of Spanish gastronomy. In his slightly Almodovar decor, he shakes things up. "I find the same energy here as I did in London in the early 2000s. It's extremely inspiring and motivating." Without a doubt. The Kerzner Group is well aware that Dubai is becoming a hub for contemporary gastronomy. With Link as its future epicenter.

This article is taken from Gault&Millau, le magazine #3. Find the latest issue on newsstands or in our online store.