- Bib Gourmand, Eat, Italian Restaurant
Signor Sassi, Dubai: Worth It?
- Dubai Restaurants, Eat, Italian Restaurant
- Share
Signor Sassi, Dubai: Worth It?
Signor Sassi is elegant in that Palm Jumeirah-new money way, but there are worse Italian restaurants in Dubai.
Signor Sassi, St. Regis Gardens, Nakheel Mall, The Palm Jumeirah, Jumeirah, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Business lunch: AED145 for three courses. Call +971 4278 4848 or check out Signori Sassi’s website for the latest information.
The Highs
The Lows
The Highs
The Lows
Signor Sassi, Dubai: Worth It?
What would you do with forty minutes to kill before a meeting on the Palm?
Being me and time encroaching on 2 pm, I stroll into a little-known Italian restaurant. Like milk-fed veal, these love handles are reared on a neat diet of processed carbohydrates. You see, old man Sassi moved his family to Dubai from a one-church town in Emilia-Romagna years ago, where he opened this eponymous eatery after a series of life events. To this day, La Famiglia di Sassi serves regional classics handmade and slowly rolled between the fingers of nonnas who are more than just cooks. They are storytellers of gastronomy in a kitchen thick with the accent of nostalgia. Industrious, worn fingers fold and crimp tiny cappelletti by the hundreds. Pasta destined for roaring vats of generously salted water that taste like an ocean long left behind.
It’s an enchanting tale. Except it is, of course, a complete farce.
Signor Sassi is the diametric opposite of such romantic fables. This London via Riyadh Italian import made a splashy opening on Palm Jumeirah’s St Regis Gardens around October 2023. “St Regis Gardens” is the shiny marketing glaze layered over a strip of restaurants. Deciduous “Gardens” of tile and concrete surfeit Nakheel Mall’s rooftop and lie under the shadow of St Regis Dubai, The Palm. Less Gardens, more Extension. Nevermind.
Signor Sassi’s place settings in the outside terrace area for business lunch.
Being me and time encroaching on 2 pm, I stroll into a little-known Italian restaurant. Like milk-fed veal, these love handles are reared on a neat diet of processed carbohydrates. You see, old man Sassi moved his family to Dubai from a one-church town in Emilia-Romagna years ago, where he opened this eponymous eatery after a series of life events. To this day, La Famiglia di Sassi serves regional classics handmade and slowly rolled between the fingers of nonnas who are more than just cooks. They are storytellers of gastronomy in a kitchen thick with the accent of nostalgia. Industrious, worn fingers fold and crimp tiny cappelletti by the hundreds. Pasta destined for roaring vats of generously salted water that taste like an ocean long left behind.
It’s an enchanting tale. Except it is, of course, a complete farce.
Signor Sassi is the diametric opposite of such romantic fables. This London via Riyadh Italian import made a splashy opening on Palm Jumeirah’s St Regis Gardens around October 2023. “St Regis Gardens” is the shiny marketing glaze layered over a strip of restaurants. Deciduous “Gardens” of tile and concrete surfeit Nakheel Mall’s rooftop and lie under the shadow of St Regis Dubai, The Palm. Less Gardens, more Extension. Nevermind.
Signor Sassi’s place settings in the outside terrace area for business lunch.
Look, nothing at Signor Sassi is groundbreaking, but so little of Dubai’s food scene is these days. To be fair, Italian food is shackled to tradition and mired in its resilience to change, so measuring innovation can be somewhat of a lost cause. Yet of these St Regis Gardens restaurants, only Signor Sassi appears to be open for lunch. How strange! Among all my Googling and searching, I could not help but notice that Signor Sassi’s website claims it is the best Italian restaurant in town. Oh, really?
My impeccably dressed server risks joining me at Club Two Hernias after carrying a menu of OVER 60 DISHES. I don’t know what hurts more: the size of the menu or the pricing. Of course, there’s no regional focus. Signor Sassi is “all-purpose Italian” at a scant skip across the a la carte menu. A bit of the North with beef tartare, beef carpaccio and vitello tonnato. Pizzettas of milky burrata or black truffle pander to a Dubai crowd who cannot make it past breakfast without eating such things. Campagnia gets a look in. There’s spaghetti with clams and mullet roe (it does sound good). Some cauliflower with yoghurt and tahini, uhm, Sicily, maybe?
Signor Sassi’s business lunch menu focuses on 10 options.
My impeccably dressed server risks joining me at Club Two Hernias after carrying a menu of OVER 60 DISHES. I don’t know what hurts more: the size of the menu or the pricing. Of course, there’s no regional focus. Signor Sassi is “all-purpose Italian” at a scant skip across the a la carte menu. A bit of the North with beef tartare, beef carpaccio and vitello tonnato. Pizzettas of milky burrata or black truffle pander to a Dubai crowd who cannot make it past breakfast without eating such things. Campagnia gets a look in. There’s spaghetti with clams and mullet roe (it does sound good). Some cauliflower with yoghurt and tahini, uhm, Sicily, maybe?
Signor Sassi’s business lunch menu focuses on 10 options.
The clientele appears to be Palm Jumeirah Janes and plenty of white-trouser-clad men whose business it is to look like they do business over business lunch.
A business menu distills the choices to ten. Four starters, four mains and two desserts. Pick one in each section. The soup of the day is potato. OK, boring. There’s beetroot and asparagus carpaccio with goat’s cheese (Mrs. EatGoSee would eat this), veal escalopes with lemon sauce (which I nearly ordered), and homemade panettone with mascarpone (also looks good). I could snuffle down almost all of these. It begs the question: do you need 50-something more options? More is not always more.
Servers take my order, bring sparkling water and remove extraneous glassware. This corner table under a candy-stripped awning is quite charming. Yes, there’s not one but two indoor fountains (because Dubai cannot help itself). There are worse places to spend a leisurely lunch in Dubai. I could clink glasses of Portofino here. The clientele appears to be Palm Jumeirah Janes and plenty of white-trouser-clad men whose business it is to look like they do business over business lunch.
Signor Sassi’s outdoor dining area sets the mood. It would be a shame to lose it during the summer months.
I peek further, popping an olive so wonderfully fat I could have used a knife and fork.
As you enter the restaurant, you walk through the “Giardino di Sassi” (groan). The design brief was likely old-world Venetian made new and comfortable enough for people to drop a lot of money, which would not be hard here. Oversized round white tables and banquette seating under an enormous indoor olive tree and chandeliers with shards of what looks like dried fish skin – in the nicest possible way. Warming dark wood panels, floor and inset ceilings. Dark green marble-ish floors. Another fountain. Of course.
Signor Sassi’s aubergine parmigiana.
My aubergine parmigiana arrives. Thinly sliced aubergine, stacked in soporific portions, are bound together like hot glue in mozzarella, tomato sauce and Parmesan. Two would more comfortably share this parmigiana starter as the blood rushes to my stomach. It’s pleasant and filling, but the breadcrumbs want a lighter touch as they lend a mealy texture. Next, four pert ravioli wallowing in a lick-the-plate good Parmesan cream are shingled with – again – truffle, as if by protocol. Dubai’s fetish-level obsession with truffles is boundless, unrestrained and insatiable.
Signor Sassi’s ravioli with Parmesan cream and black truffle.
I am now late for my next meeting. Lateness is one of life’s greatest insults in my books, so groveling WhatsApp messages are dispatched. The service team – who, I should share with you, are engaging, courteous and attentive without being obsequious – already detected a sense of hurry about me, so they asked early on if I wanted the dishes all fired at once, to which I confirmed “please” quietly clocking that they clocked my clock watching. Bravo.
They bring a lemon sorbet – all light, bright and soothing, singing of the alchemy that only zest, ice and sugar can bring – together with a bill of AED 190. That’s three decent courses and a bottle of fizzy water in a well-heeled location inside a highly decorated restaurant on a mall rooftop. I mean, “Gardens”.
Signor Sassi’s lemon sorbet.
Signor Sassi is not a place I thought I would enjoy. But, three simple courses cooked well, more or less, inside a beautiful (if not curated to the borders of contrived) dining space.
Here’s the rub: the business lunch is about as far as I would stretch. Like the recently defunct Marea, Signor Sassi’s business lunch is its sweet spot of quality to value ratio. The missed trick is that a good business lunch is more than just a deal; it’s a coquettish temptation to lure punters back to the a la carte menu. I like Signor Sassi’s business lunch, but I do not love it so much that I want to ascend the Visa-bending echelons of the a la carte’s Hokkaido scallops or wagyu tomahawks, which hold on – why wagyu, why Hokkaido? Why is an Italian restaurant using Japanese beef breeds and seafood? Why not Mediterranean or Adriatic seafood, like Alici and L’Amo Bistro Del Mare? What happened to Piemontesi Fassona beef? For that matter, where is the showpiece Tuscan bistecca alla Fiorentina?
Do I love Signor Sassi more than Alici? No. Do I like it more than L’Amo Bistro del Mare? Same, same. So, yes, I would come back to Signor Sassi for lunch – the business lunch – but with the wife – and with wine.
Signor Sassi’s interior Giardino di Sassi, with “fish skin” chandeliers?
Palm residents, people who like Dubai’s maximalist designs and Italian food lovers who do not want to be pinned down to a region. People who are looking for a business lunch outside of DIFC. Anyone who enjoys a sit-down restaurant not inside the mall at lunchtime. People who are looking to spend someone else’s money.
Three-course business lunch: AED 145
A large bottle of sparkling water: AED 35
Plus taxes: AED 10.
Servers take my order, bring sparkling water and remove extraneous glassware. This corner table under a candy-stripped awning is quite charming. Yes, there’s not one but two indoor fountains (because Dubai cannot help itself). There are worse places to spend a leisurely lunch in Dubai. I could clink glasses of Portofino here. The clientele appears to be Palm Jumeirah Janes and plenty of white-trouser-clad men whose business it is to look like they do business over business lunch.
Signor Sassi’s outdoor dining area sets the mood. It would be a shame to lose it during the summer months.
I peek further, popping an olive so wonderfully fat I could have used a knife and fork.
As you enter the restaurant, you walk through the “Giardino di Sassi” (groan). The design brief was likely old-world Venetian made new and comfortable enough for people to drop a lot of money, which would not be hard here. Oversized round white tables and banquette seating under an enormous indoor olive tree and chandeliers with shards of what looks like dried fish skin – in the nicest possible way. Warming dark wood panels, floor and inset ceilings. Dark green marble-ish floors. Another fountain. Of course.
Signor Sassi’s aubergine parmigiana.
My aubergine parmigiana arrives. Thinly sliced aubergine, stacked in soporific portions, are bound together like hot glue in mozzarella, tomato sauce and Parmesan. Two would more comfortably share this parmigiana starter as the blood rushes to my stomach. It’s pleasant and filling, but the breadcrumbs want a lighter touch as they lend a mealy texture. Next, four pert ravioli wallowing in a lick-the-plate good Parmesan cream are shingled with – again – truffle, as if by protocol. Dubai’s fetish-level obsession with truffles is boundless, unrestrained and insatiable.
Signor Sassi’s ravioli with Parmesan cream and black truffle.
I am now late for my next meeting. Lateness is one of life’s greatest insults in my books, so groveling WhatsApp messages are dispatched. The service team – who, I should share with you, are engaging, courteous and attentive without being obsequious – already detected a sense of hurry about me, so they asked early on if I wanted the dishes all fired at once, to which I confirmed “please” quietly clocking that they clocked my clock watching. Bravo.
They bring a lemon sorbet – all light, bright and soothing, singing of the alchemy that only zest, ice and sugar can bring – together with a bill of AED 190. That’s three decent courses and a bottle of fizzy water in a well-heeled location inside a highly decorated restaurant on a mall rooftop. I mean, “Gardens”.
Signor Sassi’s lemon sorbet.
Signor Sassi, Would I Return?
Signor Sassi is not a place I thought I would enjoy. But, three simple courses cooked well, more or less, inside a beautiful (if not curated to the borders of contrived) dining space.
Here’s the rub: the business lunch is about as far as I would stretch. Like the recently defunct Marea, Signor Sassi’s business lunch is its sweet spot of quality to value ratio. The missed trick is that a good business lunch is more than just a deal; it’s a coquettish temptation to lure punters back to the a la carte menu. I like Signor Sassi’s business lunch, but I do not love it so much that I want to ascend the Visa-bending echelons of the a la carte’s Hokkaido scallops or wagyu tomahawks, which hold on – why wagyu, why Hokkaido? Why is an Italian restaurant using Japanese beef breeds and seafood? Why not Mediterranean or Adriatic seafood, like Alici and L’Amo Bistro Del Mare? What happened to Piemontesi Fassona beef? For that matter, where is the showpiece Tuscan bistecca alla Fiorentina?
Do I love Signor Sassi more than Alici? No. Do I like it more than L’Amo Bistro del Mare? Same, same. So, yes, I would come back to Signor Sassi for lunch – the business lunch – but with the wife – and with wine.
Signor Sassi’s interior Giardino di Sassi, with “fish skin” chandeliers?
Signor Sassi, Who Should Come Here?
Palm residents, people who like Dubai’s maximalist designs and Italian food lovers who do not want to be pinned down to a region. People who are looking for a business lunch outside of DIFC. Anyone who enjoys a sit-down restaurant not inside the mall at lunchtime. People who are looking to spend someone else’s money.
Signor Sassi, How Much?
Three-course business lunch: AED 145
A large bottle of sparkling water: AED 35
Plus taxes: AED 10.
You May Also Like
- Arabic Restaurants, Casual Dining, Dubai Restaurants, Eat
- Dubai Restaurants, Eat, Fine Dining, Japanese Restaurants, Michelin Guide Dubai, Spanish Restaurants
Category
Follow us @eatgosee on Instagram
