Founding Flavours is a new series from The National celebrating the UAE’s culinary pioneers and the restaurants that helped shape the country’s cultural identity
From the windows of Shabestan, Dubai Creek harbour is not what it once was.
When the restaurant opened inside what is now the Radisson Blu Hotel Dubai Deira Creek in 1984, the view from dining hall on the second floor was clear.
Embassies and consulates dotted near the banks of the creek, with flags from the UK, Saudi Arabia and Iran waving, while a stream of wooden dhows were tied to the shore, their masts rising into an open horizon.
Forty years later, on the banks are low-rise buildings that form part of Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood. Behind it is a new skyline of glass towers, as well as the glimmering contours of the Dubai Frame and Burj Khalifa.
“This view makes me feel a number of things,” says Shabestan head chef Abol Fazl. “It really reminds me of what the UAE is about in the way it has progressed, but also how much time I spent here in the restaurant, which is really half of my life.”
Twenty four years to be exact. He first stepped into the kitchen at the age of 12, often coming to the restaurant in his school uniform to “just spend time with my father” before officially joining the team in 2001. His father, Shirazi Fazl, ran the tight-knit kitchen then.
Like the creek, Shabestan has evolved with its surroundings without losing its heritage: cooking refined versions of rustic Iranian staples informed by local ingredients, traditions and two generations of family history.
Shabestan began when Shirazi Fazl was recruited by the hotel in 1983. Then called the InterContinental Dubai, it was only 10 years old and was celebrated as the city’s first five-star hotel. Guests included former Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev, singer Bryan Adams and Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai.
Looking to refresh its culinary offerings, which already included Italian and French fine-dining outlets, the hotel brought in chef Shirazi to establish one of Dubai’s first gourmet Iranian restaurants.
The opportunity meant he had to head to Dubai alone, leaving five-year-old Fazl with his mother and sisters in Tehran, before the family were reunited in Dubai in 1992.
“I think it was my first experience with a big sadness as a child but he would tell me that he was doing it for the family,” Fazl recalls. “He knew that this was a great opportunity for him and our family so he went alone so he could focus and get the restaurant working well.”
While the challenge was immense, Shabestan succeeded in becoming one of Dubai’s premier Iranian restaurants by preserving the family-friendly yet deceptively complex nature of the country's cooking. Many of the restaurant's original dishes remain on the menu, Fazl says, with only minor adjustments guided by the availability of produce over the years.
The koobideh, a kebab made from minced meat glistening with its fat, is unapologetically rich. The jujeh kebab, marinated in saffron and lemon, carries a brightness that rises with the smoke. Each piece is brushed with the in-house saffron blend that Fazl says took him “five years to learn”. Shishlik lamb chops arrive with a thin edge of char, tender inside and kissed by fire on the outside.
The stews, meanwhile, are exercises in detail and patience. The baghali polo, built around a hearty lamb shank simmered for four hours, rests on top of rice perfumed with dill, and broad beans.
While Fazl had eaten many of these dishes at home, he says the challenge is preparing them each day with consistency. His father drilled this into him rigorously – often taking him to task after he officially joined the restaurant at the age of 21.
“There was no playing favourites and, to be honest, it was very hard to work with him,” Fazl laughs. “He made sure I had to work my way up. I never called him baba, only chef.
“I learnt everything – from how to place the glasses and spoons on the table the right way, to working in our butchery and carving the meats properly.”
Alongside the discipline was a constant refrain. “He used to say javan mard ['young man' in Farsi] dig deeper,” Fazl recalls. “He would say it maybe 50 times a day. It means you must always push yourself to do more, to do better.”
The phrase became part of Shabestan’s kitchen culture, repeated as often as an affirmation as it was an instruction.
That studious approach continues to pay off, with generations of families returning to dine over the decades – alongside famous names such as former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt and Iranian-Swedish pop star Arash.
For Fazl, the turning point came when he was finally allowed to handle the saffron – imported from Iran and the restaurant’s most expensive ingredient. Five years into his kitchen training, in 2005, he ground the dried threads into powder, bloomed them in water and brushed the infusion gently over the kebabs.
Sometimes he would steep the powder in hot water, other times over ice to bring out a deeper colour. Those moments felt like a graduation, a sign of trust made more resonant by the sweet and sharp fragrance released into the air.
It was a milestone in a process that culminated with Fazl officially taking over Shabestan from his father when he retired in 2016 – a summer day that Fazl still finds difficult to talk about.
“That day I cried,” he says. “I called my wife. I saw him cleaning the counters and drawers, taking his papers and giving me his recipes, and I felt everything he built was passing to me. It was very emotional.”
Chef Shirazi has not returned since retirement, preferring to spend his later years in his villa in Tehran.
While his father was always supportive, Fazl says he knew he was making his own contribution to the Shabestan story when the Michelin Guide added the restaurant to its Bib Gourmand list in 2022 – a recognition it has retained every year since.
“It is very important to me because I see and feel that I and the restaurant staff can make the restaurant even better,” Fazl says. “When I sent him the news and the photo of the award, my father was very happy. He said: ‘Soon you will become better than me.’”
Fazl’s son, aged 16, sometimes comes to the kitchen after school: “He wants to help. He chops onion, tomato. He likes it. But his mother doesn’t want him to become a chef and prefers he focus on his studies.”
Fazl doesn’t mind – Shabestan’s story will flow as naturally as the waters that have coursed down the Dubai Creek for generations. “I’m very proud of our history, but I am always focused on today,” he says. “Shabestan is alive because we have kept the standards, the spirit and the dreams of my father.”
