Sporting superstars don’t come much greater than Rafael Nadal and Cristiano Ronaldo, so the duo's new retro-style fine-dining Italian restaurant in the UAE capital was always going to be a winner. What I didn’t expect from Toto Abu Dhabi was to emerge with the impression that the best is still to come.
Incoming head chef Federico Bartoli tells me things are just warming up. Like a tennis player in the early rounds of a tournament or a footballer in preseason training, he is striving for improvement and expects to deliver better results week by week and dish by dish.
I forget to ask if they do season tickets, but will be intrigued to discover what has improved when I return. And return I must.
Where to sit and what to expect
Sky high is how I would describe my expectation levels when arriving at Toto Abu Dhabi. After all, athletes of Nadal and Ronaldo's calibre presumably do not associate themselves with mediocrity. They launched Toto Madrid in 2020 and it didn't take long to establish itself on the A-list of culinary venues in the Spanish capital. The concept has successfully branched out since then.
The latest dining destination to open on the flourishing Mamsha Al Saadiyat beachfront promenade, Toto Abu Dhabi is billed as a celebration of traditional flavours and craftsmanship that transports diners back in time to Italy of the 1950s and '60s.
The restaurant caters for 196 diners and has a chef’s table area indoors, but we arrive on a nice night for al fresco dining before the summer heat takes hold.
A later reservation means sunset has been and gone when we arrive. We’re told that’s when Toto Abu Dhabi is at its beautiful best (another reason to come back), but the night-sky setting is stunning nonetheless, so we choose to sit outside.
White sand on Soul Beach is visible in the silvery moonlight and waves can be heard gently rolling in as we are escorted to our table under a grand pagoda with a bamboo-style roof and matching chandeliers.
Brown and beige shades dominate and there’s a mixture of seating styles. As we settle into chunky cushioned chairs, water and freshly prepared Italian bread arrive promptly with the menus. The welcome from impeccably dressed waiting staff in bow ties is warm and courteous.
The menu
Business has been booming since Toto Abu Dhabi opened on April 1, but chef Bartoli says he has yet to put his own stamp on things.
He is looking forward to creating unique dishes of his own that tie in with the retro Italian theme in Abu Dhabi. But a menu loosely based on Toto Madrid is not a bad place to start.
It includes clay pot casseroles and stews, freshly made pasta and pizza, and meat and fish prepared in a wood-fired oven.
The antipasti menu has seven cold and five warm options, so we choose one of each. My sauteed prawns, served with black venere rice, diced vegetables, stracciatella and Taggiasche olives delivers lip-smacking flavours and a wonderful contrast of textures.
My wife’s burrata from Puglia is served with tomato carpaccio and basil pesto. The outside is a solid cheese casing made with mozzarella. When the gooey inside, consisting of stracciatella and cream, is revealed, I dive in for a taste and come back for more. It's too good not to share, I explain.
For mains, the menu is divided into pizza, pasta, fish and meat sections, with lots of options. Fregola is also offered to share between two.
By the time our dishes arrive, we already feel like we have been transported back in time to Tuscany. My wife’s pizzetta, with tomato, Reggiano vacche rosse cheese and ventricina sausage, more than satisfies the taste buds; and the ravioli pasta I select confirms that our waiter's recommendation of Toto's best-selling dish is spot on.
He reveals the kitchen is already shifting more than 100 portions a day. Freshly made, five pieces come with a spinach and ricotta filling and are served with contrasting tomato and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese sauces, which bring it to life on the plate.
Classic Italian tiramisu is the standout option for dessert and we both choose it rather than set up a tiebreaker to determine who has made the best menu selections. Like everything we have ordered, it is premier league quality and comes with first-class service.
A chat with the chef
Chef Bartoli arrived at Toto Abu Dhabi after three years running a casual dining place in Dubai’s Jumeirah One neighbourhood, and officially takes over as executive chef in June.
He is well travelled and speaks about his work with the same fervour Nadal and Ronaldo have for their sports. “Food is my life,” he says. “It’s an obsession. It is on my mind every day.”
The obsession has its roots in his upbringing in the northern Italian city of Bergamo. At 14, he began delivering pizza by scooter for his local trattoria and has never looked back, progressing to a Michelin-starred restaurant near Milan and on to Australia, Tahiti, French Polynesia and Dubai.
“My background is traditional Italian cuisine, done really well with a modern touch,” he explains. “Fine-dining presentation is important and I like to be creative. I’m looking forward to coming up with some fantastic, unique dishes for Toto Abu Dhabi.”
His pledge that the best is still to come means we look forward to that too.
Price point and contact information
Appetisers start at Dh80, mains start at Dh85, and desserts start at Dh50.
Toto Abu Dhabi is open from noon to midnight from Sunday to Thursday, and from noon to 1am on Friday and Saturday. Reservations can be made by calling 054 582 5222 or visiting www.totorestaurants.com/abu-dhabi.
This review was conducted at the invitation of the restaurant
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Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
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The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre turbo
Power: 181hp
Torque: 230Nm
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Starting price: Dh79,000
On sale: Now
EA Sports FC 26
Publisher: EA Sports
Consoles: PC, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox Series X/S
Rating: 3/5
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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The Details
Kabir Singh
Produced by: Cinestaan Studios, T-Series
Directed by: Sandeep Reddy Vanga
Starring: Shahid Kapoor, Kiara Advani, Suresh Oberoi, Soham Majumdar, Arjun Pahwa
Rating: 2.5/5
The drill
Recharge as needed, says Mat Dryden: “We try to make it a rule that every two to three months, even if it’s for four days, we get away, get some time together, recharge, refresh.” The couple take an hour a day to check into their businesses and that’s it.
Stick to the schedule, says Mike Addo: “We have an entire wall known as ‘The Lab,’ covered with colour-coded Post-it notes dedicated to our joint weekly planner, content board, marketing strategy, trends, ideas and upcoming meetings.”
Be a team, suggests Addo: “When training together, you have to trust in each other’s abilities. Otherwise working out together very quickly becomes one person training the other.”
Pull your weight, says Thuymi Do: “To do what we do, there definitely can be no lazy member of the team.”
