Restaurant Review: dining with the stars in At.mosphere, Burj Khalifa

It is something of an honour to be the first journalist to review the new At.mosphere restaurant on the 122th floor of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the highest restaurant in the world’s tallest building.

Celebrities like American actor Kevin Spacey, British singer Amy Winehouse and Brazilian supermodel Gisele beat ArabianMoney to the top. So too did the prime ministers of Bahrain and Thailand. But come here any evening and you will literally be dining among the stars, and at lunch you will sometimes find your head is in the clouds.

Highlife

Emaar Hospitality has created a suitably amazing restaurant and lounge, styled perhaps after the interior of a billionaire’s yacht with mahogany panels and leather, and a splash of modern art. But nothing can distract from the view.

By day you can see for miles and peer down on the financial district of Dubai (see above), the Downtown Dubai district or try to count the unfinished skyscrapers of the Business Bay. At night this is like the flight deck of an A380 coming into land in Dubai.

Fine dining

The price of the food has been widely criticized in the local media but then never has the expression that you are paying for the view made more sense. However, this is a truly gourmet dining experience with classy and glamorous service to match.

We started with several small pieces of fois gras, beautifully presented with some delicious fig-infused toast. For the steak my wife tried the kobe beef and found it mouthwatering and I tried the fine fillet. There was an aromatic truffle sauce, real wild mushrooms and other side dishes.

Both the menu and wine list are fairly limited. The catch-of-the-day of tiger prawns looked a pleasant alternative main course. The Sicilian cabernet sauvignon went well with the meat and at AED55 a glass or AED220 a bottle was hardly overpriced for a restaurant of this calibre, although Bollinger champagne at AED140 might be considered a little pricey.

For desert I enjoyed a chocolate bomb with ice cream in the centre and my wife a poached pear. In all it made a rather rich meal but a memorable one for a very memorable location.

Unlimited ambition

Being this high up the Burj Khalifa is a reminder of the unlimited ambition and massive vision behind the whole building, and indeed the city of Dubai and the UAE. You do have to stop and think that if this can be achieved in this small corner of Arabia what comes next? When is the next oil boom?

Most of our fellow guests seemed to come from the emerging markets. Not just nationals from the Gulf States but also Russians, Chinese, Indians and even a Brazilian. This is where the money seems to come from these days.

If you are entertaining an important business guest then you could rent a corporate office suite above the restaurant for your meeting and then dine below. ArabianMoney could not imagine a better way to impress a new visitor to Dubai or celebrate a special occasion.

- Peter Cooper is the author of Dubai Sabbatical, Opportunity Dubai and Building Relationships: The History of Bovis, the construction company behind many of the world’s other tallest buildings, as well as editor and publisher of the ArabianMoney investment newsletter.