Abu Dhabi Restaurants, Casual Dining, Eat

Blue, Abu Dhabi restaurant review: ‘Why don’t we have more of these?’

Abu Dhabi Restaurants, Casual Dining, Eat
October 21, 2026

Blue, Abu Dhabi restaurant review: ‘Why don’t we have more of these?’

Uninvited Opinion. In Abu Dhabi, Noah Muscat carries the nerve to do what Dubai’s kitchens won’t: less.

The Highs

The Lows

The Highs

The Lows

Linen-bound menu cover at Blue restaurant, Abu Dhabi, printed with a small flower motif, on an oak table — The flower turns up everywhere, from the sign by the door to the bill.

As a wordy man, I am fascinated by haiku. The notion of distilling a message, a feeling, into seventeen sounds. Five, seven, five.

The Japanese call the sounds on: phonetic units, not syllables, despite what I was taught in school.

Bashō is the poet most credited with turning it into an art. As the story goes, Bashō forged himself in the clever, ornate, fashionable wordplay of the time but, in his last years, he found karumi, lightness. Lightness lay on the far side of complexity: he had to tread through rule-bound tradition into a simpler style informed by the convention.

Interior of Blue restaurant, Saadiyat, with a cobalt curtain, oak counter stools, Danish modern chairs and a glassware station — Cobalt, as the name suggests, and Danish modern chairs in oak and paper cord.

Bashō once counselled, more or less, that we should not follow in the footsteps of the men of old; instead, we should seek what they sought.

Which brings me to Noah Muscat, executive chef of Blue, on Mamsha Beach in Abu Dhabi.

After stints in Copenhagen at Barr and Jordnær, he came to Dubai for FZN at Atlantis The Royal: kitchens with a handful of Michelin stars between them, known for the clever, ornate and fashionable cooking of our times, all of which he passed through to arrive here.

You wouldn’t guess any of that from Blue’s dining room: humble but smart, simple but selective, even lean at times. Inside, forty-odd seats face the beach amid glossy wood, Danish modern furniture with slim legs and paper cord, long, heavy cobalt curtains and windows that frame the great deal of light pouring through its floor-to-ceiling windows.

Dining room at Blue restaurant, Mamsha Al Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi, with oak tables and floor-to-ceiling windows onto palms and the sea — A furnished greenhouse with the sea at the end of it.

There is mastery in knowing what to leave behind, what to use, and what to accentuate, and all of those things speak with clarity and impact because of the space judiciously left on the plate and in the restaurant, allowing the right things to shine.

And speaking of pours, punters sink pints of Danish Mikkeller at the far end bar of this smart, furnished greenhouse; a long bar-style ‘chef’s table’ flanks the left side, with a front row to the kitchen’s action. I grab a corner table to absorb it all.

In the maelstrom of Dubai’s chronic maximalism, Blue is a tonic, speaking volumes through the space it leaves behind, intentionally so. In Dubai, Duo Gastrobar comes close.

There is no truffle, no showpiece caviar, just an obedience to provenance. It is clever cooking, but not thump-you-over-the-head clever.

Here, at a very different stage of his life from Bashō, Muscat found karumi after passing through the world of fine dining. Having taken what he needs from that world, he does what should be done, and lets the rest go.

One should not accept his work as simpler. It is informed. There is mastery in knowing what to leave behind, what to use, and what to accentuate, and all of those things speak with clarity and impact because of the space judiciously left on the plate and in the restaurant, allowing the right things to shine. That speaks to a confidence and judicious, economical decision-making that belies his youth.

Stone fruit and legume salad, pea hummus with seared beans, and grilled potato flatbread on Royal Copenhagen plates at Blue, Abu Dhabi — Stone fruit and legume salad, pea hummus and grilled potato flatbread.

Pudding makes the strongest case. What stands out is how it all finishes: an olive oil ice cream is built so the last taste in your mouth is not sugar, but a savoury palate reset of brine and saline.

In a haiku, the kireji is the cutting word that splits the verse and sets one image against another. Here, a candied olive does that work. It eats like a candied pecan, bequeathing a rush of saline brine, leaving a savoury finish and cleansing the palate of all that came before: the creaminess, the floral, finely-diced cantaloupe and deliciously fudgy hoshigaki, Jordanian persimmon, dried and perfumed like a herbal tea.

It is bloody clever.

Olive oil ice cream with hoshigaki and candied olives in a glass coupe, with a coupe of iced fruit behind, at Blue restaurant, Saadiyat — Olive oil ice cream, with the iced fruit coupe behind.

Blue’s menu changes with the month, and it sources much of its produce from its own farm, pickling and fermenting what it wants to stretch into the following months.

A stone fruit, grape and legume salad coaxes the fruit’s sweetness; the peas, and grilled green beans are kept firm for a bite that borders on crunch. Beneath it all, a suave parsley cream, like a split sauce which, when you pull back the five-a-day rubble, brings it all together.

A forkful of peach, peas and grilled green beans lifted from the stone fruit and legume salad at Blue restaurant, Saadiyat — The fruit brings the sweetness, so the peas and beans can bring the bite.

Eating here, I kept thinking of Osip in Bruton and chef Merlin Labron-Johnson as I first found them: harnessing and trusting local ingredients at their best moment, accentuating just that and looking outward for inspiration, particularly in Mexico and Asia.

Muscat’s creative outlook brings East Asia, the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East through shrimp toast: two long dominoes crusted in sesame; the butter-toasted milk bread is crisp outside and soft within; the prawn, so plump, it probably ate here for lunch before becoming it; all anointed with a date achar hot sauce.

Synthesising three disparate cultures into finger food, executed with aplomb, would be fumbled in the hands of a less skilled craftsman.

Greasy fingertips are the only delinquency, but Linda, who looked after me like a friend all afternoon, brings a chilled, wet hand towel tightly bound like a cigar.

The service is attentive but removed; observant from afar, generous with tiny gestures; happy to chat and engage without being obsequious, and possesses a prophetic inner compass attuned to pre-emptively fading away. Igor, the sommelier, is sharp, softly-spoken and proud of their natural wine selection, all too rare out here (including a Juliénas 2018 by the glass for 120 dirhams).

A bottle of Juliénas 2018 Beaujolais by Isabelle and Bruno Gardon, presented at the table at Blue restaurant, Abu Dhabi — Juliénas 2018, by the glass, on Igor’s recommendation

Haiku, though, began as the opening verse of a longer poem constructed by multiple poets.

Blue feels chiselled in Muscat’s image, decisively. A monolith that, when he is not there, loses a little charisma, as someone else astutely observed, shared with me, and now I cannot unsee it.

Lunch undulates with admirable highs and cruises to above average with no crashing lows.

The pea hummus in fig leaf oil and seared beans, and a grilled potato flatbread, are capable. The ‘kebab’ skewer sandwich flirts with a kofta bil warak enab, the Palestinian spiced, minced patties in vine leaves, and the Persian kabab-e barg-e mo, lamb grilled in them). Here, it is wagyu flank, grilled in vine leaves and folded into a soft seeded roll, with a champagne coupe of pickled garden vegetables for balance.

Blue offers casual dining the way accomplished chefs know how, without truly letting go. There are no accolades yet to back this up, but listen to me when I say some of Muscat’s cooking stands with the best of its kind I have eaten in the UAE.

And that alone is heavy praise.

Too often, Dubai diners conflate more with exceptional, and chefs assume overperformance breeds admiration. Increasingly, I find that absence, restraint, a light touch and knowing when to do just enough sits somewhere between enlightenment and the height of sophistication.

It’s a karumi most kitchens do not reach. More chefs and restaurateurs should look to Blue, because here the plates speak and nothing else needs to be said.

An almost empty Royal Copenhagen bowl streaked with green parsley cream after the salad at Blue, Abu Dhabi — What’s left of the parsley cream. Hearts.

Would I Return?

Yes, and back for dinner and another round of Juliénas, by the bottle this time.

Who Should Go?

Abu Dhabi residents and visitors, Mamsha denizens. Anyone sick of overwrought fireworks.

Review Information

Visit: One

Ordered (in AED): Shrimp toast (95); legume and stone fruit salad (74); grilled potato flatbread with pea hummus (48); “kebab” skewer sandwich (92); olive oil ice cream (75).

Licensed: Yes. Jauma “Fuji San”, glass (84); Juliénas, glass (120); Antipodes sparkling water, 2 x 500ml (50).

Total (AED): 701.80, including service.

Handwash: Aesop Gel Levant Résurrection Aromatique, Mandarin Ring, Rosemary Leaf, Cedar Atlas. Approved!

Receipt from Blue restaurant, Mamsha Al Saadiyat, for lunch for one, totalling AED 701.80 including service — Lunch for one, paid in full.

Blue, Lilac 6, Mamsha Al Saadiyat, Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi. Visit Restaurant Blue’s website or Instagram for more details.

Liam is a food and travel writer based in the Middle East. He co-authored The Rise of Indian Food: Recipes Reimagined by Trèsind Studio, out now and available here. Published by Phaidon Press. Photography by Shresth Maloo. Liam owns EatGoSee and contributes to other publications. You can find Liam on Substack, Threads and Instagram.

Blue, Abu Dhabi restaurant review: ‘Why don’t we have more of these?’