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Avatara, Dubai: Emerges from Tresind Studio’s Shadow
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Avatara, Dubai: Emerges from Tresind Studio's Shadow
Avatara Restaurant, 15-course tasting menu, 368 dhs. Second Floor, Voco Hotel, Sheikh Zayed Road, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. https://avatara.ae/ tel. 0581432867. I was an invited guest of Avatara.
Written by Liam Collens // Find other reviews here.
Avatara eeks out of Tresind Studio’s shadow to feed Dubai a growing global trend: a vegetarian fine-dining tasting menu. A promising first menu by chef Rahul Rana.
The Highs
The Lows
The Highs
The Lows
Avatara's Vegetarian Fine Dining Is A Tale of Realised Ambitions
In the Careem ride over to Avatara, I start thinking a bit about emerging out of someone’s shadow. You see, my father was an in-house lawyer; General Counsel for a large company, and he became a leading (although others would say notorious) figure back in my native Trinidad and Tobago. Later, my decision to apply to law school (now, many) years ago pressed heavily under the weight of expectation. Not his expectations, worse, my own. Then those of family, family friends and countless others who I have long forgotten. (No shade, just memories start to fade as I have now lived most of my life outside my home country.)
Expectations are viral. Not social media viral. No, I mean insidious, pernicious and rotting; it stifles your ability to see clearly, it conjures self-doubt. I sought to evade these by setting off on my own path. I left Trinidad and Tobago, never to return, never to look back. Decades and years later, I don’t think about that point in my life, until one wildly overpriced Careem journey to Avatara. Seriously, getting a Careem in this city has become such an indulgence, you could gift one in a Christmas hamper.
Avatara Restaurant now occupies the small dining space which Tresind Studio once occupied.
Expectations are viral. Not social media viral. No, I mean insidious, pernicious and rotting; it stifles your ability to see clearly, it conjures self-doubt. I sought to evade these by setting off on my own path. I left Trinidad and Tobago, never to return, never to look back. Decades and years later, I don’t think about that point in my life, until one wildly overpriced Careem journey to Avatara. Seriously, getting a Careem in this city has become such an indulgence, you could gift one in a Christmas hamper.
Avatara Restaurant now occupies the small dining space which Tresind Studio once occupied.
Avatara tempts one to comparisons with Tresind Studio
You see, Avatara emerges out of Tresind Studio’s former space. Dubai’s fine dining darling. #4 MENA’s 50 Best 2022 awards including the Art of Hospitality Award, among countless other accolades for chef Himanshu Saini and his team. All well covered by me here, here, here and, oh, here. Chef Rahul Rana was part of Tresind Studio’s brigade, but Avatara affords him the opportunity to creep out from its long shadow. Forge his own path. But, can Avatara evade expectations?
Comparisons will be rife. People will judge. Is this as good as Tresind Studio? W-W-T-S-D armbands are printed, ready.
Avatara leads with a 15-course vegetarian menu: a bold proposition for fleshphilic Dubai. A city built on gusty wagyu cuts and glisteningly lamb shawarmas. To Dubai residents, a vegetarian menu may sound like a freshly racked collection of hedge trimmings sourced from “Emirates Hills Farms” blanched then refreshed. In Avatara’s own words, “the perceptions around vegetarian food have been that of limitations. The idea is to break through these perceptions and … showcase the endless possibilities vegetarian food can offer”.
Avatara’s interior is fresh, white with pops of colour.
Comparisons will be rife. People will judge. Is this as good as Tresind Studio? W-W-T-S-D armbands are printed, ready.
Avatara leads with a 15-course vegetarian menu: a bold proposition for fleshphilic Dubai. A city built on gusty wagyu cuts and glisteningly lamb shawarmas. To Dubai residents, a vegetarian menu may sound like a freshly racked collection of hedge trimmings sourced from “Emirates Hills Farms” blanched then refreshed. In Avatara’s own words, “the perceptions around vegetarian food have been that of limitations. The idea is to break through these perceptions and … showcase the endless possibilities vegetarian food can offer”.
Avatara’s interior is fresh, white with pops of colour.
There is a joyously jeweller-like fixation with beauty.
Avatara’s 15-course vegetarian, tasting menu
Avatara’s tasting menu is informative, thoughtful and fun. It weaves Indian rituals like holy offerings while highlighting an ingredient’s nutritional benefits. It’s a 15-course crusade, a menu with purpose. A pudgy ignoramus like me left feeling good. Good for having eaten highly capable cooking built with nutritional value and having learnt more about India’s boundless culture.
15 courses will threaten most diners. Chef Rahul goes light, conscious of the journey ahead. The absence of dairy, meat and the sparing use of processed carbs meant we glided through Avatara’s tasting menu.
Avatara is barely open as I pen this review and it’s impressive. Chef Rahul and his team should be proud of this inaugural effort. Dubai should lean in, celebrate and encourage a team forging a path in plant-based dining (a trend I already called out a year ago).
Avatara’s 15 course vegetarian tasting menu channels Indian rituals and highlights nutritional benefits in signature ingredients.
The highlights are high. An energising liquid salad of refreshing cucumber granita with beetroot sorbet wallows in a pool of light buttermilk broth; it tickles with warm spices. The buttermilk is derived from the earlier makhan malai course, saving waste. A beautifully picturesque, tablespoon smeared with a suave butter anointed with marigold flowers, honey-like popping candy and aromatic saffron threads. There is a joyously jeweller-like fixation with beauty.
Avatara’s makhan malai (first); cucumber granita with beetroot sorbet in buttermilk broth (second).
Avatara’s dal vada is a visually familiar friend. A toasty, latticed lentil fritter with which to dredge a frisky black lime pickle – the colour of darkest midnight – paired with the fermented, but carrot sweetened, khanji. Possibly my favourite dish of the night, a title challenged by many other courses like the paani ni poori. A chocolate tablet playfully pays homage to Tresind Studio’s pani puri tradition. The cracked chocolate shell flows with herbaceous, eucalyptus-like Ayurvedic herbs. Just make sure to eat it in one bite.
Mrs EatGoSee and Courtney Brandt (the artist formerly known as AtoZaatar) munch through shards of root crisps spiked with a punchy channa mash dolloped with verdant sage pesto. They order a second portion of it. The cruciferous achari broccolini arrives like miniature trees rising from the plate flanked by bushes of glassy, crisp kale; their roasted, vegetal notes accentuated by charring (although, I do think the candied walnut is extraneous). A mouth-puckering passion fruit palate cleanser delightfully refreshes before a sabudana tiki bathed in the most moorish peanut salaan. I sit, stewing, oppressed by society’s dim view of public plate licking. Join me in #LickingThePlate.
Avatara’s root crisps of beetroot, parsnip and more with a channa mash topped with sage pesto.
Avatara’s achari broccolini (first); delightfully sharp and refreshing passion fruit palate cleanser.
Avatara’s sabudana in delicious peanut sauce (first); the kombucha-based carrot khanji chasing down the dal vada fritter.
Well, no, but so little in life is. A delinquent jalebi-inspired imarti waffle emerges regal, bronzed and shingled with gold leaf, but whose olgeanious squelch did not leave me wanting more. A few dishes like the shakara ‘sugarcane’ course with hawa mithai and kulfi is, perhaps, too subtle and, overall, reads like the first draft of a course in waiting. The rest of the table resoundingly disagreed with my view that the raw banana varvual with coconut lassi, as good as it is, should appear towards the end of the meal, which is a highfalutin point about flow. I will let you decide who was right when you come and eat it yourself, which you should. FYI, one person at the table ordered a second portion of it.
Avatara’s imarti waffle disappointed with an odd mouth (first); the raw banana dish served in a coconut shell may come too early?
Return? I am a near herbivorous Pied Piper collecting disciples to ascend Mount Avatara. Plant-based eating is no longer niche. The initial snowflake peddled by once considered Snowflakes is now a fully realised avalanche. The best in the business now champion the cause. Eleven Madison Park goes vegan (but, yes, Daniel Humm was turfed out of Claridges by uttering plant-based). Geranium banishes land animal protein favouring a plant-based, pescatarian approach. France is not immune to change. The likes of Alain Passard’s Arpège and guru Dominque Crenn go full Joan of Arc challenging the Gallic habitude of forcing feeding animals with another animal’s fat, then cooking the force-fed’s animal’s parts in yet another animal’s fat before feeding it to us, like animals. Grizzly. Those animals.
I’ll dismount my high horse. I am still the guy that once enthusiastically wrote about a dry-aged meat boutique. I do eat meat sparingly largely at Mrs EatGoSee’s usual good influence. So I am going back to Avatara and voting with my dirhams.
Tresind and Tresind Studio stans, plant-based evangelists, fine dining lovers.
Avatara’s delicate pumpkin ravioli (first); the hawa mithai that could be further refined
15 courses will threaten most diners. Chef Rahul goes light, conscious of the journey ahead. The absence of dairy, meat and the sparing use of processed carbs meant we glided through Avatara’s tasting menu.
Avatara is barely open as I pen this review and it’s impressive. Chef Rahul and his team should be proud of this inaugural effort. Dubai should lean in, celebrate and encourage a team forging a path in plant-based dining (a trend I already called out a year ago).
Avatara’s 15 course vegetarian tasting menu channels Indian rituals and highlights nutritional benefits in signature ingredients.
Avatara’s food
The highlights are high. An energising liquid salad of refreshing cucumber granita with beetroot sorbet wallows in a pool of light buttermilk broth; it tickles with warm spices. The buttermilk is derived from the earlier makhan malai course, saving waste. A beautifully picturesque, tablespoon smeared with a suave butter anointed with marigold flowers, honey-like popping candy and aromatic saffron threads. There is a joyously jeweller-like fixation with beauty.
Avatara’s makhan malai (first); cucumber granita with beetroot sorbet in buttermilk broth (second).
Avatara’s dal vada is a visually familiar friend. A toasty, latticed lentil fritter with which to dredge a frisky black lime pickle – the colour of darkest midnight – paired with the fermented, but carrot sweetened, khanji. Possibly my favourite dish of the night, a title challenged by many other courses like the paani ni poori. A chocolate tablet playfully pays homage to Tresind Studio’s pani puri tradition. The cracked chocolate shell flows with herbaceous, eucalyptus-like Ayurvedic herbs. Just make sure to eat it in one bite.
Mrs EatGoSee and Courtney Brandt (the artist formerly known as AtoZaatar) munch through shards of root crisps spiked with a punchy channa mash dolloped with verdant sage pesto. They order a second portion of it. The cruciferous achari broccolini arrives like miniature trees rising from the plate flanked by bushes of glassy, crisp kale; their roasted, vegetal notes accentuated by charring (although, I do think the candied walnut is extraneous). A mouth-puckering passion fruit palate cleanser delightfully refreshes before a sabudana tiki bathed in the most moorish peanut salaan. I sit, stewing, oppressed by society’s dim view of public plate licking. Join me in #LickingThePlate.
Avatara’s root crisps of beetroot, parsnip and more with a channa mash topped with sage pesto.
Avatara’s achari broccolini (first); delightfully sharp and refreshing passion fruit palate cleanser.
Avatara’s sabudana in delicious peanut sauce (first); the kombucha-based carrot khanji chasing down the dal vada fritter.
Avatara is perfect?
Well, no, but so little in life is. A delinquent jalebi-inspired imarti waffle emerges regal, bronzed and shingled with gold leaf, but whose olgeanious squelch did not leave me wanting more. A few dishes like the shakara ‘sugarcane’ course with hawa mithai and kulfi is, perhaps, too subtle and, overall, reads like the first draft of a course in waiting. The rest of the table resoundingly disagreed with my view that the raw banana varvual with coconut lassi, as good as it is, should appear towards the end of the meal, which is a highfalutin point about flow. I will let you decide who was right when you come and eat it yourself, which you should. FYI, one person at the table ordered a second portion of it.
Avatara’s imarti waffle disappointed with an odd mouth (first); the raw banana dish served in a coconut shell may come too early?
Would I Return to Avatara?
Return? I am a near herbivorous Pied Piper collecting disciples to ascend Mount Avatara. Plant-based eating is no longer niche. The initial snowflake peddled by once considered Snowflakes is now a fully realised avalanche. The best in the business now champion the cause. Eleven Madison Park goes vegan (but, yes, Daniel Humm was turfed out of Claridges by uttering plant-based). Geranium banishes land animal protein favouring a plant-based, pescatarian approach. France is not immune to change. The likes of Alain Passard’s Arpège and guru Dominque Crenn go full Joan of Arc challenging the Gallic habitude of forcing feeding animals with another animal’s fat, then cooking the force-fed’s animal’s parts in yet another animal’s fat before feeding it to us, like animals. Grizzly. Those animals.
I’ll dismount my high horse. I am still the guy that once enthusiastically wrote about a dry-aged meat boutique. I do eat meat sparingly largely at Mrs EatGoSee’s usual good influence. So I am going back to Avatara and voting with my dirhams.
Who Should Go To Avatara?
Tresind and Tresind Studio stans, plant-based evangelists, fine dining lovers.
Avatara’s delicate pumpkin ravioli (first); the hawa mithai that could be further refined
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