This was my second attempt at dining in this restaurant within the space of two months. While the first visit was merely underwhelming and I would describe the quality of the food as average and entirely unworthy of a hotel of this class — especially considering this is a brand-new property where everything should operate flawlessly — the second visit completely disqualified the place in my eyes. The quality, preparation and presentation of the food during the first visit were rather ordinary, more characteristic of mid-range tourist hotels than a luxury resort of this calibre. Nothing memorable whatsoever. Yesterday’s dinner, however, left an honestly dismal impression and, in my opinion, the restaurant brings embarrassment to the magnificent architectural statement that the new Atlantis is supposed to represent. I had the distinct impression that what was being served were simply leftovers from a busy weekend. The menu had been heavily reduced, many items were unavailable, and the modest quantities of what remained strongly suggested weekend remnants rather than a properly prepared service. The grill and roast beef section was frankly embarrassing. The beef resembled biltong rather than roast beef. There was absolutely no possibility of choosing any level of doneness — no blue rare, medium rare or even proper well done. Everything was served overcooked to the point where “well done” no longer felt like the correct term, because the meat was so dry it could just as well have been served as beef jerky. The entire experience felt genuinely depressing and I left with a considerable sense of disappointment. In truth, the only items genuinely worthy of praise in this restaurant are the pizza and the ice cream. The pizza is authentic, simple, beautifully baked and genuinely excellent — the next one of comparable quality you are likely to find would probably be in Italy, somewhere in Florence. The ice cream is also genuinely very good. The problem is that paying this sort of money purely for decent pizza and ice cream is simply not worth it, unless one is an extreme snob more interested in the address and the hotel’s name than the actual dining experience. Everything else resembles mediocre resort food one might expect from an average East Coast holiday complex rather than the culinary offering of the new Atlantis on the Palm in Dubai.















