Restaurant review: La Traviata, a poor Arabic/Italian Friday lunch at Jebel Ali Hotel

How disappointing for regulars at La Traviata, the so-called Italian restaurant at the Jebel Ali Hotel. Returning after the hot months of the summer we found that Chef Juli and his able restaurant manager have both apparently left for the InterCon in the Dubai Festival City.

La Traviata used to serve the best Italian buffet lunch in town on Fridays: a full Italian anti-pasta spread with specialty cheeses, sun-dried tomatos, hams and olives; a pasta and pizza station; dishes of fish, chicken and beef in Italian regional styles; sauted potatoes with spices; al dente vegetables; and Italian olive bread feshly cooked; thick apple tarte, panacotte and tiramasu.

Mama mia!

All full of flavour and hard to resist. Well imagine then the sighs of disappointment to find a modest selection of Arabic starters including hummous and flat-bread, pickled vegetables, French and Dutch cheeses, seafood salad and a limp pasta salad, though the Italian sun-dried tomatos still put in an appearance.

We gestured to the restaurant’s signage ‘La Traviata – Pure Italian’ to the waitress who later explained, ‘We are Arabic at lunchtime now.’

Indeed, and a rather downmarket version of Arabic cuisine at that, not exactly a hommage to the best of Lebanese food. The main course buffet comprised barbecued chunks of lamb and chicken, tough pieces of beef, watery grilled potatoes and overcooked vegetables. Strangely there was a tray of ready-cooked pasta getting cold and flaccid.

It was true the tiramasu remained on the dessert table, now joined by dates, sliced fresh fruits, an inferior type of cheesecake and Arabic sweets.

Arabic lunch

Would we have been happy if we had not known this restaurant’s so recent better days? Not really the Arabic buffet in the La Fontana restaurant in the same hotel was very much better the last time we tried it, with a lot more variety for all the courses. Is this a different chef?

There was still a decent bottle of Tuscan chardonnay to wash this meal down but like the sun-dried tomatos, pasta and tiramasu this seemed to be a survivor from a heroic past. It’s a shame. The hotel had recently completely re-done the interior and created a nice outdoor seating area.

Not surprising then to find the restaurant half-empty and not full as it was earlier this year. We won’t be back either.