The story
Hakkasan Dubai sits within Atlantis, The Palm on the Crescent Road, and it carries weight that few restaurants in the city can match: a MICHELIN star and a Forbes Travel Guide Four-Star award, both earned through consistent, exacting work rather than spectacle alone.
The room is designed to draw you inward. Dark blue and turquoise tones, dark oak latticed wood screens that carve the dining room into intimate pockets, and a striking blue sculptural light installation overhead create an atmosphere that is moody without being oppressive. A deep house soundtrack runs underneath the conversation. There is a blue-lit bar and a lounge area for cocktails before you sit down — the kind of pacing that signals the evening is meant to be taken seriously.
MICHELIN-starred Chef Andy Toh leads the kitchen with a clear point of view: Cantonese cuisine is treated as one of the world's most ancient traditions, and every dish is an exercise in revealing its most delicate detail. Ancient techniques are kept intact; modern precision is applied where it sharpens rather than replaces. The result is a menu that feels both rooted and alive.
The Cantonese cooking here ranges from the theatrical to the quietly brilliant. The lychee lobster — lobster presented to resemble lychees in a pastry basket — is a signature that demonstrates the kitchen's appetite for craft. The lobster salad with pear, sweet melon and dragonfruit is lighter and more architectural. Caviar-topped glutinous rice chicken with quinoa crisps shows the same instinct for layering texture and flavour.
Among the more grounded dishes, the Alaskan king crab with black bean and chili sauce, the Mongolian beef with caramelized onion and enoki mushrooms, and the sweet and sour chicken with pomegranate are all named as highlights by Forbes. The grilled black cod with truffle sauce — a Hakkasan signature across all its locations — appears on the set menu alongside the Peking duck with pancakes and the stir-fry black pepper rib eye beef. The set menus are a considered way to move through the kitchen's range without the pressure of building a full order from scratch.
The cocktail list is inventive and specific. The Silk Road Margarita is pistachio-infused; the Suawei draws on rhubarb and cherry. Beyond cocktails, the bar carries an extensive selection of premium international wines and sake, and non-alcoholic options are given equal attention.
Recognition
Location