I tried Trèsind in Dubai, a two-star Indian restaurant

I had never eaten in a Michelin-starred Indian establishment and I was shocked.

If you hang around too much on Instagram and your algorithm is based on food, then you may have seen the viral video of a dish composed by ten waiters lined up in front of the customers of a restaurant in the greatest of refinements.

The video posted in April has been viewed more than 2.8 million times. The scene was filmed in the Trèsind Studio restaurant in Dubai. The dish in question is a modern interpretation of the traditional “Onam Sadya”, an Indian dish composed of pineapple marinated in spices, mango pickles, creamed rice and papadam, a fried Indian bean-based pancake. The post was widely commented on, because many Internet users were offended by the distant interpretation of the real Onam, which is a convivial dish that is normally served on a banana leaf and not a mouthful worthy of a workshop. goldsmithing.

But Trèsind Studio is not an Indian restaurant like any other. The establishment is part of the 50 Best Middle East and since 2023, it can boast of having two Michelin stars. In the United Arab Emirates, it matters, because only three establishments can say the same.

What does the restaurant look like?

At first glance, it looks like any gastro: white tablecloths, dim lighting, glasses so thin that you’re afraid of breaking them and a stool for Madame’s handbag. There are only five tables (20 seats in total), all facing the open kitchen.

The menu is a surprise, but as in all establishments in Dubai, the servers take care to ask if you have any allergies or intolerances. For this kind of thing, Dubai is like the United States… they are afraid that they will be sued for poisoning.

It is a discovery not only of Indian cuisine, but also of its geography that awaits us: the experience begins with a hostess who comes to explain to us using a magnificent 3D map which region we are going to explore.

The menu, made up of 15 appetizers, is divided into four biotopes: the desert, the jungle, the mountains and the sea coast. For each biotope, an associated element is placed on the table: an hourglass, a green plant, a miniature mountain and a pendulum with water. Saying that, it sounds silly, but it’s actually very visual and makes the experience even more immersive.

Each dish has its own presentation. But we’re not being giddy: everything has a meaning. Jungle dishes are placed on exotic tree leaves, one of the desert dishes made from nopal was presented on a prickly pear palm, and those from the sea are highlighted on tableware reminiscent of shells.

Each “plate” looks like a jewel which we are sometimes asked to put whole in our mouth to really feel all the tastes and scents.

There are very few dishes to eat with cutlery and most of them are accompanied by a very concentrated broth that forces us to say to each dish:

But the dish that struck me the most was the one that was presented to us like a nun at the bottom of a fondue pot. In this case, it is not cheese, but a sauce which finishes cooking on a candle stove and which is sauced with brioche bread. For those who watch Top chef This season, it’s a bit of a Yannick Alléno test on the theme of “the best of the best”.

The other completely crazy dish is the pre-dessert which transmits the flavors of an oyster and which you have to swallow as you would with this shellfish. But there is no crustacean, it is composed, among other things, of tea, black soya, lychee which gives the texture of the crustacean and a leaf of vegetable oyster. The pearl is made with sour milk and lemongrass.

We don’t know if we’re on a savory or sweet dish. No importance. What we remember is the talent of chef Himanshu Saini, 35 years old, equally capable of alternating sweet and savory, sour and spicy, tradition and novelty. Its goal is to change the perception of Indian cuisine by elevating traditional dishes to the status of refined delicacies. Because very often, in people’s minds, and in mine too before this experience, Indian cuisine is naan with cheese and curry with rice. It is, but it is also much more, because as the hostess reminds us with her map of the country at the start of the meal, we more often talk about Indian cuisines in the plural as it is rich and diverse.

Telling everything about this experience is a bit like spoiling a film as the direction matters as much as the flavors. You can stop reading if you don’t want to know the ending. For the others, here’s how it ends:

Thanks to perfect coordination between the kitchen and the servers, all the guests finish more or less at the same time. For the grand finale, the lights go out in the room, the background music also goes out and all the staff seem to have disappeared. All eyes are turned towards the kitchen, now in the dark. To the tune of “Fly me to the moon” by Frank Sinatra, the waiters come out of the kitchens each with an illuminated moon on which are placed two white chocolates with honey, the chef’s signature dessert, the Honeymoon. For once, it was perhaps the least interesting dish, but nevertheless the most poetic.

From now on, Trèsind Studio is part of my top 3 restaurants that have marked me for life, just behind Noma in Copenhagen, and ahead of Casa Caminada in Schauenstein, in German-speaking Switzerland.

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