Restaurant review: Can Can, Ritz-Carlton DIFC, best value lunch in town?

The Ritz-Carlton hotel chain is not normally the sort of place you associate with great value lunches. Its normal style is to be impressively expensive. But for diners in the Can Can French brasserie in the Dubai International Financial Centre’s Ritz-Carlton there is a rare chance to eat impressively and inexpensively too.

This reviewer thought his eye-sight might be failing when reading the wine list. We have not seen a bottle of chardonnary priced at AED90 in many years in Dubai. In some hotels you can pay that for a glass of the stuff.

Wine price breakthrough

We very much hope this new trend towards global price levels for wine in Dubai catches on. There is no justification for the staggering mark-ups on wine locally that are way above anything justified by the high local tax on alcohol.

Still the even better deal was on the lunchtime menu itself at an amazing AED85 for three courses. As this is a buffet you can eat like a Bourbon king if you like. There is a huge selection of starters and soup with anything from lightly tossed nicoise salad  to Arabic hummus.

But the compromise is entirely on price not quality. This is all the usual fresh and high-quality fare that you would expect in any Ritz-Carlton. It gets better.

10 out of 10

For the main course you have a selection of choices from a short a la carte menu, so this is individually cooked, beautifully presented and served at the table. My friend chose lamb in puff pastry and immediately announced plans to bring his wife next week. The chicken roll I picked was also excellent.

Ah and onto the dessert buffett. Eat the whole thing if you like, you can have as much as you can manage to digest. The Can Can also has a fine patisserie shop and this is reflected in the delicious creations on the dessert trolley.

This is also a very smart restaurant with service to match. We could not fault it and for the price it is an absolute steal.