Is Kraken all it's cracked up to be?

I couldn't resist this clichéd idiom for a headline. Chef Gregoire Berger's new seafood restaurant reviewed.

I am back from a week-long press trip to Bangkok, hosted by chefs Gaggan, Tonn, Pam and the Sühring twins, whose restaurants I last visited two and a half years ago. I’ll pen my musings for an upcoming newsletter. In the meantime, you’ll find a flurry of Instagram stories pinned to highlights.

Thank you to those of you who joined my launch #OneNightOneDinner at Girl & the Goose last month. A peek into the reel here and photos here. I am planning the next experience and I’d love to know your top homegrown licensed restaurants, ideally relatively new on the block.

Talking of new, on to this month’s review. Kraken is chef Gregoire Berger’s new seafood restaurant, having left Atlantis’ Michelin-starred Ossiano. Once and for all, I hope (he has previously departed and returned).

His new baby is a homegrown concept housed in a villa conversion, a stone’s throw from Khadak on Al Wasl Road.

Impressively, according to the menu, 70 per cent of all ingredients are locally sourced, with the seafood, sustainably line-caught, partly down to the restaurant’s own fishing boat.

Gregoire and his head chef Robin Höfer, also formerly Ossiano, use the Japanese ikejime technique of humanely killing and preserving fish that is meant to elevate quality, texture and flavour.

I managed to sneak in and out, dining completely incognito for the whole experience, which, as you know, gives me pure pleasure. Gregoire was out catering for an event, and the front-of-house team didn’t bat an eyelid. Happy days. But was it a happy experience?

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