Manao - Dubai
Part of the dining room and a view into the kitchen
Rating: 17/20
Where: Dubai, UAE
When: Dinner for 1 on 25 May 2025
Cost per Person: Tasting menu 490 AED ($135), Beverage pairing 100 AED ($30)
Accolades: 1 Michelin Star
Why: Varied Thai-inspired cuisine, bursting with flavors
Right at sunset, Dubai’s air was still hot and humid when my Uber driver dropped me off near “Manao”, a newly one-Michelin-starred restaurant. Luckily, it was only a short walk to the air-conditioned mall that housed the restaurant.
Dubai’s new Michelin Guide had come out only three days earlier, and its two new three-star restaurants prompted this last-minute halfway-around-the-world trip. Not really knowing where else to go, I took the advice of a local food journalist who deemed Manao to be the “best restaurant in town”. And trying some “Thai contemporary” cuisine, made by an Indian chef in Dubai? Sounded interesting for sure.
I was greeted by name at the door - presumably I was the only solo diner during this seating? And speaking of seatings, the restaurant did two per night, spaced only two hours apart, which meant that a dinner lasted only around ninety minutes. That worried me a bit - an hour and a half seemed a bit short for an 11-course tasting menu.
The interior of the restaurant looked newly remodeled, with simple chairs and tables - functional and modern, but not “fancy” by any means. A Michael Jackson playlist came from the speakers at a significant volume, but didn’t seem to impede the conversations at the dozen-ish tables. The staff outnumbered the tables, and they seemed to be in constant motion. No wonder given the math: 11 courses for 12 tables in 90 minutes, plus beverage pairings, tea, coffee, clearing the tables after a course and setting them up for the next, etc, etc. But the timing worked out perfectly, with the whole operation running like a well-oiled machinery. The chef himself even managed to come out of the kitchen to a present a couple of dishes. Granted, I would have preferred a slightly slower dinner, but then learned on the following nights that this was actually fairly typical for Dubai.
Manao offered just a single tasting menu, with the optional addition of a “Chef's special” scallop dish for 105 AED ($30). After traveling almost 24 hours to get here, I figured, why not splurge a little? The restaurant had no liquor license (something not easy to come by in a Muslim country, I suspect), so instead offered a beverage pairing that used lots of fermentation. While there wasn't a huge synergy between the beverages and the food, they didn't clash either. If anything, the tangy drinks were great for cooling down after some of the spicier dishes. Definitely recommended.
Before the food began, I was handed a palate cleanser, a sour tamarind beverage containing a dried lime leaf. Refreshing, slightly tangy and not sweet at all. Lovely.
The first course arrived soon thereafter. A charred cabbage leaf was wrapped around crunchy cashew nuts and was topped with a “sour relish”. I took a bite, and… bam! This dish was practically an explosion of flavors - a (welcome) assault on the senses. Spicy, sour and crunchy from the nuts, it almost had a meaty texture. While the dish had aspects of Thai flavors (such as limes), I think that “inspired by Thai cuisine” would be a more accurate description than “Thai cuisine” 17. The chef stopped by soon thereafter and inquired whether the spice level needed to be adjusted. Compared to Sorn, though, the spiciness was quite harmless, so I had no problem to continue without any changes. I liked though that I was asked after the first dish, rather than in the abstract ahead of the dinner (as, e.g, at Sorn).
A Gillardeau oyster was served with a mango-chili sauce and fried shallots. We were supposed to eat this in one big bite - a slightly daunting proposition given the size of the oyster. I somehow managed, and there were again lots of flavors: sourness, fruitiness, but the dish was not as spicy as the previous course. The oily shallots helped to soften any lingering spice 16.
The next dish might have been the trickiest one to eat (for fear of it falling apart), in a menu with more than its fair share of difficult-to-eat dishes. A coconut crisp basket was filled with a fermented rice custard and topped with a tamarind-glazed grilled lobster. The lobster was nicely cooked, and had a light tamarind flavor and some spice to it. The rest of the dish tasted of coconut, more spice, and a complex mix of flavors 17.
Crab meat that had been marinated with chickpea miso and then grilled was served in the crab shell and seasoned with green chilies and chopped cilantro stems. The crab was lovely: juicy, spicy and well seasoned. There was lots going on, but calling this a Thai dish would have been a stretch, since there were Indian and other influences as well. But who needs a classification if the result is that tasty 17.
Next, it was time to cool down, in the form of a pomelo salad with prawns, peanuts, cilantro and crunchy pieces of rice. Thanks to the tangy sauce, this was tastewise very similar to a papaya salad, but with a much softer texture due to the pomelo. The noticeable crunch suggested an a la minute preparation. A fresh and spicy dish 16.
The base of the following dish was a “sticky rice” roti: a flat rice cake that had been fried on only one side, making it both chewy and crispy. It was topped with a kaffir lime relish and short ribs. We were instructed to eat this like a taco. I feared for an imminent disaster due to either (a) the roti ripping or (b) the meat being hard to bite off. But thankfully neither happened. The beef was very tender and fell apart easily. Another flavorful dish, where the first impression was actually one of sweetness, which then gradually moved towards spiciness. The texture on the roti was impressive (indeed chewy and crunchy), almost like combining two entirely different ingredients into one 17.
The first curry course of the night featured a yellow curry surrounding a piece of king crab. On a separate plate was a steamed rice cake that had been fried on the bottom. This curry managed to perform another flavor progression: it started out very light, sweet almost, but its long finish was full of lingering spice. The crab was fine, but the curry overwhelmed any inherent flavor that it might have had, so that it was mostly there for texture. Speaking of which, the texture of the rice cake was highly unusual. I had expected the texture of cooked rice or maybe of an idli, but got neither. The bottom of the rice cake was nicely fried, but the steamed top was almost bready. Hard to describe, but very interesting 16.
At this point, I received the optional chef's special. It was a charcoal-grilled, tamarind-and-tamari-glazed Norwegian scallop that was served in its own shell with a sauce made from yellow beans and cilantro. The scallop was cooked well - maybe a touch too long, but its flavor was no match for the much more intense sauce. That sauce was quite tangy, contained some pickles, but not much spice. A nice dish, but not something I'd consider Thai-flavored - it was more of a pan-Asian fusion dish 16.
Then we arrived solidly in meat course territory. First, a rice dumpling that had been steamed on one side and fried on the other. It was filled with duck meat and paired with a hot and sour broth that I was instructed to sip between bites of the dumpling. The broth was very intense: limey, very sour, (temperature) hot and a bit spicy. In comparison, the duck meat was earthy and felt a bit dry. This was a fun dish, but the two parts (dumpling and broth) were too far apart to create a coherent, balanced whole. Instead, I experienced a kind of flavor whiplash whenever I went from a bite to a sip or vice versa 16.
The final savory course was beef served with a sour curry made with citrus fruit, chilies and long pepper. On the side was rice wrapped inside a smoked banana leaf. The meat was very tender, and the curry flavors strong but balanced: tangy, a bit sweet, but less spicy than earlier courses. The rice was lightly flavored, good both by itself and with the lovely curry 17.
Dessert number one was reportedly a favorite during the time when the restaurant was still doing popups. Sticky rice was served as a grilled mochi on a stick. It was angled over a bowl containing what I heard as a “sticky rice” ice cream, but the menu listed as a coconut ice cream - maybe it was a mixture of both. In any case, a wonderful combination: the skewer was warm, crunchy and chewy, the ice cream cold with an intriguing aftertaste. This felt like the recreation of someone's favorite childhood treat, managing to instill a sense of familiarity and nostalgia even in someone who had never had it before 17.
The final bite of the evening was a crispy “donut” filled with cashew cream and banana ice cream. In practice, this dish had several different crunchy layers with the banana ice cream at their center. Enjoyable, but also much simpler than the previous dessert 15.
Overall: A tour de force of Thai-inspired dishes that were all bursting with flavors. Nothing authentic here, but neither did it have to be. The presentations might have lacked some of the elegance seen at most multiple-starred restaurants, but they more than made up for that with sheer exuberance - one couldn't wait to see what was next, and the staff's enthusiasm was palpable. Definitely a restaurant to watch and one that unlikely to rest on its laurels. How do I know that? A chef asking you what dish you liked best is pretty commonplace, but one asking you which one you enjoyed the least - now that's someone who really cares about pushing their craft further. From a pure enjoyability perspective, this was already closer to two stars than one 17.
