Carna Dubai in Dubai
Let us set the scene for you. Legendary butcher Dario Cecchini takes over his family's business with a noble mission – to uphold the art of butchery, crafting a properly cooked piece of meat every time whilst eliminating waste and promoting sustainability. Dishes jam-packed with flavour coupled with minimum carbon footprint? We're in.
So, where does sparkly Dubai come into this? In May 2021, Cecchini opened Carna by Dario Cecchini, a European Contemporary Steakhouse, on the 74th floor of the SLS Hotel overing Business Bay and beyond. Tapping into the foundation of the family business's early days, it adds in that Dubai twist the right way – with elegance, pizzazz and drama.
(Credit: Carna Dubai)
From the second you enter, it all delivers. The lift zips you up the SLS's lift before arriving to a lounge-like foyer, where you're greeted by a pleasant host before weaving through an lantern-lit hallway before walking through a plush curtain. It feels exclusive and special. You'll be happy you adhered to the smart elegant dress code.
Step inside the main dining room and you'll thank yourself even more. With chandeliers lined the room, forest green wall ties, statement artwork and sky-high windows, it's all very fabulous. But better yet, a tree placed in the middle of the room offers. Once you're done admiring the tree, look outside. The illuminated wheel at JBR and Burj Al Arab steal your attention – they're crystal clear.
Take your seats at a white linen-covered tables, complete with table lamps. There are hints of art deco, a welcome contrast from the typical dark steakhouses. It's giving vibrant yet cosy.
When ordering we take the lead from our friendly and attentive server. First up is Dario's beef tartare for a starter, prepared tableside to expose the aromatic elements, from special salt to herbs and spices. It's one of those Instagram moments, but in the best way. Have no shame in filming as the dish is whipped up before your eyes.
(Credit: Carna Dubai)
Burrata arrives at the same time, with shaved zucchini, piquillo pepper, espelette oil, eggplant caviar and toasted sunflower seeds. It's an unexpected yet fantastic combination. Chicken liver parmentier, oxtail croquettes and a candy tomato salad, with watermelon radish black olives and bergamot vinaigrette, are all on the list, making for a strong start to the evening.
But onto the main event.
Few go to a steakhouse and not order the steak. The server elaborates on the different cuts with ease, from the leanness of the tenderloin, an Australian black angus long fed filet steak weighing in at 200g, to the marbling of the 250g Australian wagyu flank steak. Both grace our table, with pristine presentation.
If you really want to splurge, opt for the 420g rib-eye, but beware, it will set you back Dhs495. These don't come with sides, but make sure to add them to your order. Opt for cremed spinach and whipped smoked potatoes to complete your sizzling meal.
Every last morsel went down a treat. The requested 'medium' was aced, the staff was knowledge and seemed to mind read (water top ups at the ready). Talk about service.
We guarantee you'll be in the best kind of food coma. And if that's not the best bedtime story, we don't know what is.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Wales Online
3 hours ago
- Wales Online
Ryanair baggage rule change could see passengers hit with extra £70 charge
Ryanair baggage rule change could see passengers hit with extra £70 charge Ryanair has updated its cabin baggage rules for summer 2025 and there's one rule that could catch you out if you're unprepared The summer holidays are now upon us and many Britons are desperate to escape the UK for some well-deserved sunshine and coastal tranquillity. Unfortunately there are countless airport rules that could dampen the enthusiasm before it even starts. One rule, concerning Ryanair luggage, risks creating problems for passengers at the airport if they turn up ill-prepared. It's frequently seen as travellers' biggest nightmare – being singled out by airport personnel to check their hand luggage dimensions with sizing frames just before take-off. With budget airline Ryanair passengers are permitted to take a "personal bag" free of charge though it must comply with their strict size requirements. For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here . After a recent change in line with EU rules these dimensions have been increased to 40 x 30 x 20cm. If their bag surpasses these boundaries passengers face a fee as high as £70. Ryanair operates a card-only payment system at its boarding gates, which could create problems for some holidaymakers. This means that if a passenger is prepared to pay the fee, without a payment card to hand, they could be prevented from boarding with their baggage, reports Lincolnshire Live. A Ryanair spokesman told the Daily Mail: "Our bag policy is simple; if it fits in our bag sizer (which is bigger than our agreed dimensions) it gets on free of charge. Article continues below "If it doesn't fit in our bag sizer you pay a gate bag fee. As our boarding gates are cashless gate bag fees cannot be paid in cash. "These fees are paid by less than 0.1% of passengers who don't comply with our agreed bags rules. For the 99.9% of our passengers who comply with our rules we say thank you and keep flying as you have nothing to worry about." Therefore if you're travelling with Ryanair this summer it would be wise to bring a card to guarantee your holiday begins without a hitch. This warning emerges following reports that a new four-hour regulation has been implemented before the summer holidays, affecting travellers with Ryanair, easyJet, TUI, and Jet2. Following a European Union ruling, the timeframe for claiming compensation for delayed flights has been lengthened. After more than a decade of discussions it has been determined that compensation claims for short-haul flights will only be acceptable following a delay of no less than four hours, which has increased from the earlier three-hour limit. For long-distance trips travellers must endure a delay of six hours or longer before pursuing compensation. The type of delay also influences the amount of compensation granted. Article continues below A4E, which represents leading European carriers, voiced frustration. A spokesman said: "Europe has been waiting for transparent and workable passenger rights for 12 years and member states have fallen at the final hurdle to deliver [...] member states have diluted the European Commission's original proposal and introduced even more complexity."
Channel 4
3 hours ago
- Channel 4
Lammy refers himself to watchdog after fishing illegally with JD Vance
Shortly after he joined the call between US and European leaders, Vice President JD Vance addressed American troops at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire. He told them the President was committed to bringing peace to Europe once again. Vance is on a working holiday in the UK, although he's found himself in a bit of hot water over his fishing trip with David Lammy earlier this week.
Daily Mirror
7 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
Europe holiday hotspots becoming 'ghost towns' with empty hotels and dead nightlife
Wars, recessions, overtourism protests and fed-up locals are just some of the reasons why visitor numbers are slumping in some resorts that rely heavily on holidaymakers Five European holiday hotspots beloved by holidaymakers are struggling to attract visitors as the 'ghost townification' of certain destinations continues. Wars, recessions, overtourism protests and fed-up locals are just some of the reasons why visitor numbers are slumping in some resorts that rely heavily on holidaymakers. While the travel industry is generally booming across Europe, with Brits taking a record number of holidays, the story of unfettered, seemingly never-ending growth that was being told post-COVID is no longer the case in every destination. Below are five holiday destinations where a different story is beginning to be told. Faliraki, Rhodes It was once the ultimate party resort. The Rhodes town was infamous for the unruly tourists who would descend on it every summer. For A-Level school leavers of a certain generation, Faliraki was the place to go. But then Greek officials, pushed by unhappy locals, hit breaking point. In 2003, they decided that enough was enough, announcing a ban on pub crawls and a new tough policy on violence and scantily clad revellers. And it worked. When the Mirror's Melissa Thompson visited in 2013 she wrote that "Faliraki is unrecognisable." However, the clean-up came at a cost. "While the vomit-covered streets, couples having sex in alleyways and late-night punch-ups are gone, so too is the money the tourists brought with them," Melissa noted. Local businesses say the clean-up has all but decimated the place. While the town once enjoyed a six-month season packed with British tourists from May, their departure left them struggling to make ends meet in a summer that lasts just three months, starting in July. The behaviour crackdown has not been the only factor blamed for the slump in Falirakian fortunes. The arrival of large all-inclusives along the east coast of Rhodes, as well as sizzling hot summers that have seen major wildfires, has dented fortunes along the strip. As of 2013, some businesses report a 90% dip in earnings. Sofia Gkouma, 45, who has owned the Acropolis restaurant on the corner of two of the town's busiest streets since 1990, said: 'Before, this area would be filled with young English people. They were good customers. For 15 years we had them on pub crawls on 18-to-30 holidays, but then there was trouble because the hotels that catered for families couldn't deal with them. They just wanted older people and families. They cracked down on young people and they left, with nothing to replace them.' When I visited earlier this year, things had clearly improved a little. The area was smarter and cleaner than during its 'Faliraki fishbowl' debauched heyday. But it also felt as if it had struggled to fully capture a new identity, with most bars only partially full and a strange mix of karaoke-singing families and out-of-place young partygoers. Bulgaria Over the past decade, the former Soviet state of Bulgaria has caught the eye of an increasing number of tourists, who have been won over by the great prices and good weather on offer along the Black Sea coastline. The destination became popular enough to inspire its own UK reality TV show, Emergency on Sunny Beach, which offered a glimpse into the larks on offer in the cheap and cheerful resort as it went head-to-head with established favourites such as Magaluf. In recent years, many of the beach resorts along the Black Sea have started to feel conspicuously empty. The Bulgarian Hotel and Restaurant Association announced that hotel occupancy rates had dropped 40% in some typically bustling areas. Only Sunny Beach had bucked the trend and seen an increase in visitors. The declining fortunes of hotspots dotted along Bulgaria's 235-mile coastline are primarily due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. After Vladimir Putin launched the offensive, Bulgaria stopped air links between the countries, which led to a tenfold decline in Russian visitors, from a 2019 high of 500,000 a year to 50,000 in 2024. The impact has been a hollowing out of certain resorts once popular with Russians, with Varna particularly impacted. The town sits close to a village called Bliznatsi, which, according to Radio Free Europe, is actually owned by the Russian state. Many ordinary Russians have attempted to sell their holiday homes along this stretch of coastline since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine began. Despite such turmoil, beyond the Russian market, Bulgaria's tourism industry is on the up. Last year, the country's Ministry for Tourism confidently announced it would hit record visitor numbers and tourism revenue of £6billion a year. The EU's tourism dashboard shows a steady increase in arrivals across the country year-on-year. Marbella, Spain In Spain at large, tourism is booming. Visitor numbers are up in almost every part of the country. However, one place in particular is now facing a slump. Tourist numbers have declined on the Costa del Sol this summer, marking the first time since the pandemic that numbers have dropped. The downward dip has been felt particularly keenly in Marbella, where there was a 34% drop in Spanish tourists in June, according to data from the National Statistics Institute (INE). In July, 68,630 people came to visit the city, which is 8,201 fewer than in 2024. The fall in visitors is causing misery through the hospitality sector in Marbella, with business owners wondering how they're going to make ends meet. "There are days when we feel like we're not holding our heads in our hands from so much work, and others when the restaurant is empty. It's as if people are more restrained when it comes to going out," Yolanda, a waitress at one of the downtown hospitality establishments, told Sur. A retail worker in Marbella told the publication that those Spaniards who are visiting the destination have less money to spend. They blamed "how expensive accommodation has become" as well as a lack of public transport between Malaga and Marbella – which sit 40 miles from one another on the coast – for the 10% dip in tourist numbers overall this summer. While visitor numbers are down, Marbella is far from feeling empty. Hotel occupancy has reached 80.08 percent, with an average stay of 3.95 nights – the highest since 2016. Estonia After two years of pent-up demand during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, many European countries enjoyed bumper years in 2023 and 2024 as visitor arrivals and average spends shot up. In Spain, August arrivals increased by two million to 19 million in 2024, compared to the pre-pandemic 2019 peak. But not every country has enjoyed, or, depending on your perspective, had to tolerate such booming figures. Estonia's visitor figures are 22% down now compared to 2019, with hotel bed occupancy rates hitting just 40% this summer, according to EU data. There are a number of reasons why. The proximity to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine has likely kept some concerned tourists away, while a ban on Russian visitors has certainly dented numbers. According to Travel and Tour World, cruise ship arrivals in the capital Tallinn are also down significantly. So far this summer, the situation has been particularly tricky in the southeast of the country, where many resorts run along the vast lakes Peipus and Pihkva. An unusually cool summer is to blame. "Occupancy has dropped by about 30 percent — at least for the first two months that just ended," said Triinu Vähi, a board member at Taevaskoja Tourism and Holiday Center. She told ERR that July is also shaping up to be relatively quiet, with occupancy down around 20 percent. However, as much as Estonia's tourism sector may have had a slow start to its post-Covid recovery, it clearly has a lot to offer. The Mirror's Ines Santos visited earlier this year and was blown away by a country she likened to a more laid-back but equally as beautiful Sweden. It was also named one of the world's cleanest and most walkable countries. Cyprus The island of Cyprus is home to one of the most famous abandoned towns in Europe, or perhaps even the world. Famagusta was once loved by Europe's elite, but now the disputed area sits empty: the consequence of conflict between the Turkish and Greek-controlled parts of the country. Despite the simmering tension and general unease evident between the two sections of the island, tourism in Cyprus has been booming for years. That is, until early in 2024, when the number of arrivals fell for the first time in three years. A big reason why was the war in Ukraine, with Russian visitor numbers falling 70% in 2024. Those in the hospitality industry have been sounding the alarm since 2023, warning that the rise of Airbnbs and other holiday letting companies is taking customers away from hotels and also pushing up locals' rents in popular areas. Visitor numbers to the Turkish-controlled Northern Cyprus have doubled in recent years, according to President of the Cyprus Hotel Association, Thanos Michaelides, which has taken visitors away from the Greek part of the island. Hotel occupancy in June last year was at its lowest in three years, at 49.6%. Mr Michaelides has warned that 30,000 fewer tourists will visit the island over the summer season, meaning around £20 million less will be spent on the island. The faltering UK economy has been cited as a major factor, given the 1.3 million who visit Cyprus most years, and a decline in Israeli visitors. The hotel boss said 'significant threats to the demand for tourism in Cyprus" remained.
