Restaurant review: Gigi Dubai, is this St. Tropez stunner the queen of Dubai's beach club scene?
When Dubai finds a hospitality niche that proves popular with the people, the city's community of restauranters, entrepreneurs and plucky F&B gold rush prospectors waste no time in rolling out the blueprints and applying the key mandate of economic philosopher, DJ Khaled. 'And another one'. We've seen it with smashed patty burger bars, and I can't find any studies backing this up but I'm confident that if you were to take a quick survey you'd see that there's more square footage of dinner and show venue in Dubai than there is on the whole of the Vegas strip. There are viral chocolate facsimiles by the baker's dozen, a playful proliferation of axe-throwing and mini golf bars, and a scandalous quantity of secret speakeasies. But if there's one corner of this market that Dubai has truly made its own, to an extent beyond comparison, it's Beach clubs.
Amongst the sandy blizzard of fresh shoreline sun traps that made landfall last year, J1 Beach – replacing what was formally the La Mer complex, in Jumeirah 1 – had to be amongst the most captivating. 13 (almost uniquely bohemia-inspired) bars and beach clubs, stacked up in one luxury leisure district. It's a Disneyland for the sunnies and sushi set. That's some fierce commercial competition, It's also a lot of consumer choice. So where should discerning daycationers be spending their flop and drop dirhams? There are venues that are stronger on nightlife, some that have focused on their food offering and others that have committed themselves to the exclusivity proposition. But for me, whether you're going solo, as part of couple, a group of friends or as a family, Gigi Dubai is a glittery, elegant, wholly magnificent outlier. Fair warning though, it's priced accordingly.
It's a concept imported from that Edenic spring of beach club bliss, St. Tropez – run here by zero-miss custodians, Rikas Hospitality Group. Gigi (intermittently referred to as Gigi Rigolatto) is the anthropomorphised spirit of Cote D'Azur glamour, a trust fund countess who beckons with a single bronzed finger, bidding you to come and take sophisticated sips at the Bellini Bar, shelter from the swelter in the adults-only pool, pack the kids off to the Circus (that's the kids club, though you do you), comandeer a beach cabana, or just enjoy the assorted dining delights from what might actually be the best new Italian menu in Dubai.
That's a bold claim, so let's focus on the restaurant component. My eight-year-old son, Maverick, is the food critic I pay the most attention to in Dubai, and that's only partly because of the dire consequences of feeding him a bad meal. His review of the children's margarita pizza, was essentially a staccato collection of gratified grunts followed by a chef's kiss salute. I tried it, and can authenticate the ASMR-based five-star rating. We started with calamari (Dhs95), ricciola (a yellowtail carpaccio, Dhs170) and melanzane alla parmigiana(Dhs95). I've already shared a spoiler for how good the food is, but the bubbling, pastoral, fondant eggplant parmesan is the stuff of raw umami fever dreams, both music and muse, rhythm and Adriatic blues.
Allora , the mains. This was my turn to make muted affirmations and euphemistic eye rolls. We had the polipo alla griglia (Dhs300) and a black angus tagliata di filetto (Dhs330), not appearing in our budget eats round-ups anytime soon, but certainly living in my head rent free for perpetuity. I've actually visited the Gigi on France's Cote D'Azure, and if you asked me to pick the better kitchen from my limited exposure, it's absolutely the one in Dubai. Faultless fare.
The flavour of your experience of Gigi Dubai will be accented by the syrup of where you choose to sequester yourself, but it's impossible to find an angle that's anything less than sublime. Supine on the sundeck of the pool oasis, holding court at the bar, or just locked in to a leisurely graze in the restaurant's garden – thematically, dramatically, emphatically – there's atmosphere, detail and ethos in every corner.
Gigi Rigolatto, J1 Beach, midday to 1am , pool and beach access: weekdays Dhs300 non-redeemable, weekends Dhs400 non-redeemable. Tel: (0)4 558 2067 @gigi_beach_dubai
Verdict: Gigi is the new bench mark for grown-up and family beach club brilliance in Dubai.
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