Moonrise - Dubai
Getting ready for the show (note: the restaurant was remodeled after my visit)
Rating: 16/20
Where: Dubai, UAE
When: Dinner for 1 on 26 May 2025
Cost per Person: Tasting menu 995 AED ($270), Wine pairing 950-1750 AED ($260-$475)
Accolades: 1 Michelin Star, #10 on 50 Best Restaurants in Middle East & North Africa (2025)
Why: A chef's personal take on growing up and living in Dubai
It was well after sunset, and an unusually clear night in downtown Dubai. From my vantage point - a 31st floor roof deck of an apartment building in Al Satwa - I could see the lights of the Burj Khalifa twinkling in the middle distance. In the right time and place, such a view along combined with the light breeze ruffling the air would be a dream setting for an amazing al fresco dinner. Unfortunately, Dubai in late May was neither that place nor that time, with a humid 30 degrees Celsius always at the ready to drench anyone caught outside the safety of the ubiquitous air conditioning. “Well, it was a nice thought”, I mused as I wistfully entered the more temperate glass box that was my destination this evening.
The name of the restaurant “Moonrise” might have been chosen with exactly that distinctive nighttime view in mind. And the dinner served here was a love letter its city, to Dubai. Some dishes celebrated local produce, others highlighted the fertile mix of culinary cultures, and a few reflected the chef's childhood, spent growing up in Dubai during the late 1990s and 2000s. Fittingly, all diners were seated at a U-shaped wooden counter that faced the open kitchen, and the chef took center-stage, explaining every course and the story behind it. This all came across as quite genuine and charming, with amusing and/or interesting vignettes instead of an over-produced story line.
The restaurant served a single tasting menu, but there were plenty of choices for beverage pairings: two wine pairings (950 and 1750 AED, about $260 and $475), a non-alcoholic pairing (550 AED, $150) and a half wine/half non-alcoholic pairing (700 AED, $190). I tried the first drink from the non-alcoholic pairing, an amazing strawberry daiquiri. It was sweet, tangy, foamy, and one of best mocktails I've ever had. I almost regretted ordering the (lower-priced) wine pairing (see below), but it turned out to be quite decent, with the red wine and a dessert sake (!) being particularly strong.
Our dinner started with three quick bites that were served while guests slowly trundled in. The subsequent courses arrived at the same time for everyone, so it paid to be not too late. First, I tried a pani puri shell filled with foie gras, a pineapple-saffron chutney and date syrup. The shell was very crunchy - but this dish only looked like a pani puri, in particular, there was no liquid inside of it. Instead, there was a progression of flavors starting with the creamy foie gras, followed by the fruitiness of the pineapple and ending on a hint of spice. It's pretty impressive to have such a clearly delineated sequence of taste experiences in a single dish 16.
The next dish focused on local produce, something that one wouldn't necessarily associate with a desert country. Local tomatoes, microgreens and flowers were seasoned with nori and a za'atar furikake, and were served on a house-made cracker. This dish felt more Middle Eastern than the previous one, with its creamy sauce and spices. The tomatoes were good, but overall this bite struck me as a touch too acidic. Probably intentional, but still slightly too much for me 16.
The last starter was a grilled cheese sandwich - the first dish that the chef had ever cooked. (Presumably not in this version, though.) Here, toasted Hokkaido milk bread was topped with Thai black garlic, a Parmesan cheese sauce cooked at a low temperature, and shaved summer truffles. On the one hand, this was all decent: the bread was nicely toasted, the sauce cheesy, only the truffles were a bit light in flavor. However, this dish felt a bit generic. And ironically, right after mentioning that a dish was too acidic, this one actually could have used more acidity to cut through the heavy cheese. Maybe some pickles? 15
According to the chef, the best thing about Fattoush salad is the sauce at the bottom of the bowl, so the following dish only featured that sauce and skipped the salad entirely. More precisely, the acidic sauce was used to make a fish ceviche. The fish in question was a shima aji that had been aged for several days and was topped with a lemon koshu and lemon zest. The fish itself was lovely with a slightly creamy consistency, and its sweet topping was probably meant to balance the very acidic sauce. Overall good, but a bit too acidic for my taste 16.
Based on the chef's experience of enjoying grilled prawns at local fish markets, we received a prawn tartare next. (Ironically though, the prawns were not local, but from Sicily.) Seasoned with black limes and chili pepper, they were served in a garlic dipping sauce. The shrimp were creamy and chopped into relatively big pieces for a tartare - not that I'm complaining. There was some crunch from a cracker as well, and the garlic sauce was delicious with some herbal notes, possibly of dill? 16
Bread and butter arrived next, and stuck around for the rest of the meal, ready to sop up sauces, and always replaced hot from the oven. The bread was made from a 1350-day-old starter (as old as the restaurant) and the accompanying French butter was seasoned with dates. The bread used a mix of Indian and French flours, which resulted in a chewy bread that felt like a combination of naan, baguettes and maybe other breads. Essentially a flatbread, it didn't have a crust, but was toasted on the bottom. Since it was also fairly neutral in taste, it went quite well with the following dishes and the lightly sweet butter 16.
In the chef's telling, the Dubai of the late 1990s and early 2000s was very different from the culinary mecca that it is today. Back then, pasta Alfredo might have been one's idea of a fancy meal out, and the next course was a play on that classic dish. Ravioli were filled with shiitake mushrooms and came with three different sauces: one made from rotisserie chickens, another made from three different cheeses and finally, a Parmesan foam. Oddly, the ravioli's skin felt somewhat dried out, as if it had been cooked some time before serving. This was not a light dish, and while it had some fine mushroom and cheese flavors, it might have been better brightened up with some acidity 15.
The following dish was inspired by its sauce: a blend of ponzu and French butter. The restaurant has been iterating to find great matches for this sauce, and on this day served a five-day-aged filet of turbot, cooked with brown butter and fermented vegetables. In addition to the sauce, the dish contained a smoked herb oil and had some dried seaweed on top, which we were instructed to eat first. The seaweed was indeed lovely by itself, with a notable herbal taste. The fatty fish was cooked to a firm texture - very nice. The sauce was buttery, herbal and had a bit of acidity - as did the pickled vegetables. Not a beurre blanc, exactly, but somewhere in that vicinity 17.
An A4 wagyu steak, cooked sous vide and then finished over charcoals, was part of the final savory course. It was not the star of the dish, though, since that honor belonged to the sauces: a beef jus and a mix of onion puree and black limes. On the side was a shiso salad, meant to be used to sop up the remainder of the sauce. The beef was a bit too chewy for my taste, but the oniony, tangy sauce was very good and went great with the salad chaser 16.
The first dessert was small. An aged muskmelon sauce came with yuzu gel, honey, a frozen yogurt and crisps of dehydrated yogurt. Lightly fruity, this dish was sweet from the honey and had some acidity from the yogurt. A very nicely balanced combination 17.
Strawberries and cream - the classic combination. Here, the strawberries came from Japan, and were paired with three sauces that were based, respectively, on strawberries, matcha and local honey. There were some brown butter and raspberry crumbles, and finally an underbaked Madeleine (“since cookie dough is better than cookies”, the chef explained). A dessert that, even though it had quite a number of ingredients, ended up feeling homey and familiar. This dish also wasn't that sweet, in fact the sweetest part were the raw strawberries 16.
The final bite of the night was half a canelé seasoned with dates, brown sugar and genmaicha tea, and topped with some cream. The lights were dimmed when this dish was served, meant to evoke the feeling of sitting around a campfire with bites that looked a tiny bit like s’mores. The canelé's seasoning made it taste more like gingerbread, and I couldn't make out its texture since the cream on top was so overpowering 15.
Overall: A refreshingly personal take on growing up and living in Dubai, and experiencing its culinary landscape. The dishes were enjoyable, and there were a couple of true standouts, including the amazing turbot dish. My main nitpick would be that several dishes could have used some tweaking of acidity levels: some needed a bit more, others a bit less. Still, with a infectiously enthusiastic staff and lots of energy, this is a place I'd happily return to 16.
