Gymkhana Dubai Dubai

Last night at Gymkhana I ate a dhal that was so delicious I wanted to pepper it with questions. Where are you from? What’s that smoky thing you’re doing and how much of you is butter?

But there was nobody to ask. I could have asked our waiter, but was still recovering from our ordering process, and The Serb’s entire knowledge of Indian food comes down to one question, which we’d already asked him forty times. (See previous post for context)

Wine gets a sommelier, someone in a waistcoat and a vocabulary that includes “quaffable”, who will happily talk you through a bottle for as long as you can stand it.

Food, some of the most complicated stuff humans have ever made, gets a waiter passing on a message from the chef who suggests you eat it in one bite, which is more of a dare than an explanation.

So how about this - a culinary sommelier. Someone who sits with you through a tasting menu and tells you what’s actually going on, from the technique and textures to the history and why that spice rather than the other one.

A very well-read dinner guest who really knows their stuff and doesn’t try your dessert.

Would I pay for this? Maybe. I’m also aware that paying a stranger to explain my dinner is how a food writer goes from “one of us” to “unfollow” in under 200 words.

Is this a brilliant idea, or have I reached peak pretentious? Less