Manāo Dubai

I dined at Manao 24 hours before they won their first Michelin star. I’m not saying that had anything to do with it, but I’m not saying it didn’t either.

Manao is the love child of Chefs Abhiraj Khatwani and Mohammed Orfali – an unlikely duo, tackling an even more unlikely cuisine.

This is an Indian chef, partnering with a Syrian chef, to deliver Michelin standard Thai cusine. Only in Dubai.

Truth be told, Abhiraj has been cooking Thai since his Yellow Monkey days, and he’s grown since then. His cooking is much more refined, considered.

The dishes always had confidence and great flavour, but in Manao, with Orfali’s input, there is more refinement and sophistication.

For the few that aren’t familiar with Manao, they serve a Thai inspired set menu of 11 courses.

The Serb and I arrived for a midweek date and the first bite, took the Serb’s breath away. Quite literally.

I’d forgotten her ‘delicate’ Balkan palate, so the sour relish on the charred cabbage miang took her by surprise.

She recovered - in time for the dessert.

We opted for the drinks pairing as well – best decision of the night. House drinks like jackfruit Kvass and roasted barley and coffee tepache elevated the menu.

But my favourite was the banana kombucha. Even though staff had warned it was an off-menu experiment, the Serb kept looking at the menu trying to find it.

As politely as possible, I reminded her it wasn’t there. For the third time. She fixed me with a Slavic stare and gently said, “I don’t like your attitude.”

My Kombucha froze almost instantly.

The rest of the dishes went by in a delicious blur of flavours, textures and stories.

Shout out to the coconut short rib for the amazing textures, the sour curry for its…sourness and the thai banoffee bite for everything else.

It is an exceptionally good menu. Quantity, pacing, flavours - they were all on point.

Special shout out to the poor server who patiently listened to my story of why Thai cuisine punches above its weight on the world stage; his encourgaing nods were perfectly timed.

Congrats to the entire team for their well deserved Michelin star - that I had nothing to do with. Less

I struggle with many tasting menus, especially in Dubai. Why?

Sky-high price points. For one imported concept here, the exact same menu is AED400 more expensive than its home country.

Three to four hours (and sometimes more) of my life that I will never get back, thanks to snail-pace dining.

Long-winded storytelling for every single, bloody dish. I really don’t care if the chef’s grandma, or a jaunt to an obscure corner of the world have inspired the cooking. I can read about all that, and more, on the website. I just want to eat my food. In peace. And preferably warm. Unless we’re feasting on sushi and sashimi. But even then, the tale must be kept to a minimum. There’s only so much inane chatter I can stomach.

Good food should speak for itself.

And then along comes @manao_dubai An affordable, by Dubai standards, of AED450 for an 11-course tasting menu. Served in one and a half hours. A printed menu on the table, from arrival. Something several of these concepts don’t give you until, dare I say, the bitter end. A succession of different staff members explained the dishes, succinctly in seconds. The chef only popped out once to briefly present a dish, swiftly scuttering back to the open-plan kitchen. You wouldn’t even know he was the chef, unless you had stalked his good looks on Instagram.

Chef @abhiraj_khatwani is the [handsome] Indian chef whose cooking expertise was honed in north-east Thailand before opening The Yellow Monkey, a casual Thai gem at JBR that I used to frequent years ago until Covid shut its doors. @m.orfali of @orfalibros_bistro fame, the Midas touch chef has backed him to open a 34-seat restaurant in Wasl Vita, solely dedicated to a Thai-inspired tasting menu.

So how does Manao fare? 🔗 Link in bio/ stories for my review which scored a five out of five knife rating. The first restaurant in my 14 years of reviewing where I have dished out this pinnacle of a rating.

Is Manao the most affordable tasting menu in Dubai? Are you a fan of tasting menus? Or do you prefer à la carte dining?

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