SimplyAbuDhabi XLIX

Fire provides another recurring theme. At Amaru, the grill is more than a cooking method; it is part of the restaurant’s culinary language, drawing on traditions in which smoke, flame, and communal cooking have long been inseparable from food and gathering. Among the heartier dishes is a 36-hour Venezuelan asado negro , slow-cooked short ribs accompanied by butternut purée, jaggery glaze, coriander, and spiced lime. Elsewhere, seafood, premium cuts, and vegetables meet the heat of the grill, allowing char and smoke to bring another layer to the menu’s vivid flavours. Vegetables receive equally thoughtful treatment. Chargrilled asparagus is paired with pickled radish and sweet potato, while compressed aubergine cooked a la brasa combines white miso, tomato tartare, black garlic, and a smoked emulsion. Dessert maintains the sense of occasion, from churros and dulce de leche to a playful piñata inspired by the Latin American tradition of celebration and sharing. It is this combination of food, design, mythology, music, and movement that gives Amaru its distinctive character. The restaurant does not attempt to distil a vast and varied continent into a single culinary identity. Instead, it borrows from its many traditions to create something deliberately contemporary and unmistakably Dubai. After all, a serpent-dragon that travels between worlds seems a fitting symbol for a restaurant built around the pleasures of crossing borders. At Amaru, the journey happens one plate at a time. Simply Abu Dhabi | 281