Few things get me more excited in a restaurant than good lighting. It’s like the holy grail of interior design... Get the mood lighting right, and everything else follows. Rikas Group understands the brief and it’s something its restaurants (Twiggy, La Cantine du Faubourg, Mimi Kakushi et al) all have in common. When I visit the group’s latest opening, XU at Kempinksi Hotel Mall of the Emirates, even I understand the brief... Banished are the original spotlights, replaced with far more gentle-on-the-eye lanterns and table lamps that create intimate, cosy corners and add to the Cantonese street-style mystery of the restaurant.
Walking through door, across its black and white chequered flooring with soft red neon glow, and into the restaurant feels like you’ve stumbled upon a clandestine corner of a city where only those-in-the-know go to dine. It feels all sultry and sexy with different spaces depending on your mood – a bar, restaurant, lounge and outdoor terrace, flanked by mirrored ceilings, crimson-tiled walls, animal-print banquettes, greenery and all that delicious low-lighting. While the restaurant fits 300 covers, it feels far more intimate. The perfect place for both parties or more private whisperings over a Spice Me Up cocktail.
There’s a gentle flow to the space though, with the bar ushering you towards a welcome drink as you arrive. We sit on high bamboo stools, with pretty bamboo roller blinds above our heads, and a cocktail menu made of bamboo inked with the most intricate Chinese artwork.
The signature cocktails on the menu pay tribute to Chinese pop culture, with things like the Bruce Lee-inspired Be Water, with a gunpowder-infused vermouth, or the tequila-paloma Year of the Dragon. I order a Hukou Spritz – aperol infused with fresh lychees, watermelon cordial and Prosecco. It’s so refreshing and effervescent I almost dive in. When we move to our table, it secures us the perfect vantage point: we have eyes on the bar, the terrace and the restaurant, allowing for an evening of excellent people-watching.
The menu is the creative genius of chef Min Wei Lai, the head chef at Rikas Group, and serves his take on high-end Cantonese-inspired cuisine with Southeast Asian flavours woven in. It’s a sharing-plate menu, which is far more fun, conjuring up conversations over clashing chopsticks and debates over favourite dishes.
We start light: a spicy seaweed and cucumber salad with a chilli garlic sauce that is a riot of Asian flavours, all crisp and aromatic, and crunchy Oriental salad with lotus root and black fungus. The ‘beancurd bag’ with mushrooms and pickled radish are like dim sum I’ve never had before: phenomenally light, in which the outer layer literally melts away to reveal all kinds of magic on the inside. I’ve never been a dim sum devotee but this is worth converting for.
We follow with duck rolls with spring onion, which are crunchy in all the right ways, sweet and sour chicken with pineapple, which is devilishly sticky and moreish, and stir-fried bok choy with ginger and garlic, because no Cantonese meal is complete without, in my mind.
There’s plenty more to pick from, such as slow cooked Wagyu beef ribs, Alaskan king crab sweet corn soup, caviar prawn toast, diver-caught scallops, plum-baked Chilean seabass with osmanthus syrup, crispy soft-shell crab and Peking duck served with pancakes.
What I like most is that the presentation of each plate never overshadows the flavours – everything is elegantly served, but with no unnecessary frippery. Simply excellent food given space to do what good ingredients and great chefs do best. Something else XU does best is leave us with a little intrigue, having perfected the subtle art of leaving diners wanting more. More dishes to try, more corners to explore, more cocktails to sip... But nothing is forced. It just has that way. Like a favourite city you never get tired of or a book you keep going back to. Never goodbye, just see you soon.
WHAT: XU
WHERE: Kempinski Hotel Mall of the Emirates, Dubai
TEL: +971 4 394 6252
www.xudubai.ae