Smoked Room review: What to expect at the Michelin-starred Dubai restaurant

It’s been almost a year since decorated Spanish chef Dani Garcia brought two of his most popular culinary brands to Dubai, opening Lena and Smoked Room at St Regis Gardens on Palm Jumeirah.

Lena is a chic spacious dining room, with an inviting bar and welcoming terrace. But today, we’re here to talk about Smoked Room. Tucked away inside Lena, and accessed via low-lit corridors and inconspicuous sliding doors, lies an intimate 14-seat omakase venue, which was lauded with one Michelin star in July, a mere six months after opening.

Inside Smoked Room

Entering Smoked Room, you feel like you’re being let in on a secret or, at least, into an ultra-exclusive club. My evening began at the Lena bar, but it wasn’t long before the team whisked me away to Smoked Room, the entrance to which has something of a James Bond lair feel, with walls fittingly the colour and texture of charcoal, and automatic doors that are opened by touch.

If it weren't a Michelin-starred restaurant, I’d be worried that I wouldn’t be able to find my way out. As it stands, I know I’ll be doing anything I can to stay put.

The 14-seat restaurant faces an open-fire cooking station. Photo: Smoked Room

The mini maze of corridors open to a small semicircle-shaped room, filled with a single crescent table with 14 seats, all of which face the main event – a live kitchen with an open-fire cooking station. Above the chefs is a row of mirrors, a detail I love as it allows you to watch exactly what the chefs are working on. I feel like I am in the audience of the most elite of cooking shows.

The namesake scent of smoked fare greets you as you walk in, as do smoking cabinets filled with meat and fish, which flank the kitchen. It’s very clear that it’s not just a smoke room by name.

There is also a dessert room, which I'm shown into for the final two courses of the meal. Another atmospheric and moody space, it’s decorated with amber touches and earthy shades of brown.

What's on the Michelin-starred menu?

There are two set menus, Kosei no Hi (Dh600 per person for 10 courses) and Matsuri (Dh950 for 12 to 14 courses); I try the Kosei no Hi menu, but currently only the Matsuri menu is available.

Although it’s an omakase experience, the dishes are by no means limited to Japanese cuisine. The focus is on smoking techniques and cooking with fire, with fish, seafood and poultry all appearing on the menu.

My meal begins with a triple-fermented brioche roll served with red miso butter, which is prepared tableside. Amaebi from Hokkaido served with brown butter and smoked black pepper follows. The amaebi, a variety of sweet pink Japanese shrimp, is silky smooth, with a fiery kick care of peppercorns and fermented chilli, with fresh yuzo giving the dish a citric lightness.

Next up is one of chef Garcia’s signatures – the sturgeon nitro tomato.

Sturgeon nitro tomato, horseradish cream and caviar. Photo: Smoked Room

A feat of molecular gastronomy, the tomato-shaped dish comprises creamy smoked sturgeon mousse, served with caviar atop a bed of almond pearls. It is finished with an almond and horseradish soup, which gives the dish warm depth. It is a complex medley of flavours, but the creamy soup – an element of the dish that nods to the culinary styles of chef Garcia’s native Andalusia – is a highlight.

A palate cleanser in the form of tomato snow with smoked mackerel and chipotle follows. It is not my favourite dish on the menu, but the icy tomatoes and smoked fish make for an intriguing combination. I also love the attention to detail, which extends to the presentation of chilled cutlery to eat the dish.

From here, we move on to the warm dishes, starting with charbroiled hokkigai clam. I am a proud lover of Italian vongole, but this was my first introduction to this ingredient, which is essentially a giant clam – each can deliver up to 400g of meat, our server tells me. The shellfish is served with creamy beurre blanc and fresh wasabi.

The combination of creamy ingredients with a dash of heat is a culinary theme throughout. A single smoked mushroom stuffed anolini served in broth follows. An earthy but light dish, it is incredibly warming and uses both raw and cooked mushrooms.

Duck with black mole and corn risotto, with a duck and foie gras croquette. Photo: Smoked Room

It is around about here that I start to feel very full, but press on in the interest of culinary journalism and, realistically, greed. The only meat dishes on the menu follow, in the form of dry-aged duck, served with a black mole and corn risotto. The duck’s crispy layer of fat is extraordinary – if it were available in bags of crisps, I’d be teetering into dangerous addiction territory.

The final savoury dish is a duck, foie gras and mushroom croquette – a single bite that melds foie gras with the rich meat. Despite being fried, it maintains a pillowy texture – had I not just eaten so many courses beforehand, I could easily have tucked into a plate of four or five of the indulgent croquettes.

From there, we move into the speakeasy-style dessert room, making space for the evening’s second wave of diners in the 14-seat dining space. Dessert begins with a seasonal nod, in the form of autumnal roasted butternut squash puree, mandarin sorbet and caramelised pumpkin seeds. A clash of textures and temperatures, the dessert isn’t overwhelmingly sweet; in fact, the puree tips the scale on to the savoury side, levelled out by the sorbet.

The meal finishes with a chocolate dish, with shards of dark chocolate layered on a miso and whiskey gel, built like a fire in a fitting nod to the eatery’s name.

Key Smoked Room details

Smoked Room is open for two seatings, at 6pm and 9pm, from Tuesday to Saturday. As a set menu experience, the meal takes between two and three hours. The restaurant is located at St Regis Gardens on Palm Jumeirah, and can be accessed via the main St Regis Dubai entrance. Call 04 453 7548 to book.

This review was conducted at the invitation of the restaurant

Notable salonnières of the Middle East through history

Al Khasan (Okaz, Saudi Arabia)

Tamadir bint Amr Al Harith, known simply as Al Khasan, was a poet from Najd famed for elegies, earning great renown for the eulogy of her brothers Mu’awiyah and Sakhr, both killed in tribal wars. Although not a salonnière, this prestigious 7th century poet fostered a culture of literary criticism and could be found standing in the souq of Okaz and reciting her poetry, publicly pronouncing her views and inviting others to join in the debate on scholarship. She later converted to Islam.

Maryana Marrash (Aleppo)

A poet and writer, Marrash helped revive the tradition of the salon and was an active part of the Nadha movement, or Arab Renaissance. Born to an established family in Aleppo in Ottoman Syria in 1848, Marrash was educated at missionary schools in Aleppo and Beirut at a time when many women did not receive an education. After touring Europe, she began to host salons where writers played chess and cards, competed in the art of poetry, and discussed literature and politics. An accomplished singer and canon player, music and dancing were a part of these evenings.

Princess Nazil Fadil (Cairo)

Princess Nazil Fadil gathered religious, literary and political elite together at her Cairo palace, although she stopped short of inviting women. The princess, a niece of Khedive Ismail, believed that Egypt’s situation could only be solved through education and she donated her own property to help fund the first modern Egyptian University in Cairo.

Mayy Ziyadah (Cairo)

Ziyadah was the first to entertain both men and women at her Cairo salon, founded in 1913. The writer, poet, public speaker and critic, her writing explored language, religious identity, language, nationalism and hierarchy. Born in Nazareth, Palestine, to a Lebanese father and Palestinian mother, her salon was open to different social classes and earned comparisons with souq of where Al Khansa herself once recited.