The Top 5 Places to Get Ice Cream in Dubai | Haute ... - Bacio Gelato

Feed the art
With a new gourmet deli
and several shops offering
home-grown treats, Dubai
fi nally has a culinary scene
that it can call its own.
Now, what to eat?
Gourmet Station
The crowds have yet to fl ock to the
Oasis Centre’s newly opened Gourmet
Station, but it’s only a matter of time.
While Dubai has a handful of
speciality stores, none boasts the
incredible culinary selection of this
new, fancifi ed deli. On a recent visit
Time Out discovered a few kitchen
must-haves.
Núñez de Prado organic
olive oil
The Núñez family has
been making this oil since
1795. While most olive
oils are pressed, allowing
mills to squeeze a kilo’s
worth of oil from 5kg of
olives, Núñez de Prado’s oil
is made from crushed olives.
The oil is allowed to drip into
collecting vats naturally, requiring
11kg of olives to produce a kilo of oil.
It is not an oil you cook with, it is an oil
you drizzle. This multi-award winning
product is renowned in the gourmet
world for its sweet, grassy fi nish – a
taste so pure it’s a waste to cloud it
with heavy fl avours.
1l, Dhs82
Regina Pasta
As any Italian chef will tell you,
freshly made pasta beats the dry kind
any day. But making pasta from
scratch can be a chore. Enter Pasta
Regina, the company run by Italianborn
Dubai resident Stefano Brocca.
Brocca supplies many of Dubai’s fi vestar
hotels with his homemade pasta,
and he even runs his own restaurant,
Stefano’s, in the Marina Walk. Now,
he’s selling his pasta to the public. The
pasta may be made in Dubai, but it’s
produced from fl our and bottled water
imported from Italy.
100g, Dhs14
Cornish Sea Salt
The sea water in Cornwall is incredibly
pure, meaning that these fl aky salt
crystals (thin shards that melt on the
tongue) have a fresh, clear taste absent
in other salts. Also, Cornish Sea Salt
retains more than 60 naturally
occurring trace elements,
giving it a rich, mineral
fl avour that makes meat sing.
125g, Dhs13. 225g, Dhs27,
500grams, Dhs54.
Gourmet Station, Oasis
Centre (04 515 4050). Open
Sun-Thu 8am-10pm, Fri-Sat
8am-11pm
The Dubai Mall
On the lower level of The Dubai Mall
sits a handful of exquisite
gourmet shops. We did the
rounds, and discovered
that surprisingly
some things are best
made in Dubai.
Forrey & Galland
macaroons
The brainchild of
two French
chocolatiers, all
the products at
Forrey & Galland (a
revival of a renowned,
but defunct Parisian
label) are handmade. The
rich chocolates and airy
macaroons (among the best we’ve ever
tasted) are produced in the UAE, and
the boutique in The Dubai Mall is the
brand’s fi rst and only retail outlet.
There is nothing artifi cial about the
fl avours present in these macaroons,
and they are so light they nearly fl oat.
Pistachio macaroons come with a
creamy, fresh interior, and are
followed up nicely with a
rose macaroon, which
comes imbedded with
crushed rose petals.
Forrey & Galland,
The Dubai Mall (04
339 8850). Open
Sun-Wed 10am-
10pm, Thu-Sat
10am-midnight,
Dhs420 per kg
Cocoa Sampaka’s
Major Cacao Origins
The Barcelona-based
chocolate company is one of
the few that is involved in every
part of the chocolate-making process,
from selecting the cocoa bean through
to manufacturing the product. As a
result, Cocoa Sampaka understands the
nuances of the different beans, and
brings its understanding to the
consumer in the form of the Major
Cacao Origins collection, which
assembles chocolates from the main
chocolate producing countries in the
world, including Venezuela, Grenada
and the Ivory Coast.
Cocoa Sampaka, The Dubai Mall
(04 434 1427). Open daily 8.30ammidnight.
One box of 16 pieces, Dhs50
Galler, Kaori
In order to stay fresh, Galler has
introduced a new, fun chocolate
concept. Kaori is a sort of culinary
calligraphy set, with several chocolate
sticks representing a calligraphy brush
and ink in the form of three fl avoured
pots (strawberry and balsamic, saffron
and yuzu, for instance). Go ahead,
make your tongue that blank canvas.
Galler, The Dubai Mall (04 339 9604).
Open Sun-Wed 10am-10pm, Thu-Sat
10am-midnight. One box, Dhs150.
Other location: Wafi City (04 327
3120).
Cornish Sea Salt
retains more than
60 natural trace
elements giving
it a rich fl avour
Mall of the Emirates
Bacio Gelato
This family-run gelateria is easy to
miss, tucked away behind the Mall of
the Emirates in Barsha’s backstreets.
But a round-up of high-end gourmet
goods would be incomplete without
mention of Bacio Gelato. Made without
dies or preservatives, this Italian-style
ice cream is vibrant and pristine
tasting. It may seem strange to dig into
a beige pistachio, but rest assured it’s
only because pistachios aren’t really
green. The ice cream really is delicious,
however. Pair a sundae with a
cappuccino and eat in, or buy a kilo
and bring the gelato back home for an
indulgent night in. If you’re really lazy,
they also do home delivery.
Bacio Gelato, The Baron building, Al
Barsha (04 323 2949). Open Sun-Thu,
7am-10pm, Fri-Sat 10am-10pm. Half
kilo Dhs40, one kilo Dhs70.
May 21 – 28 2009 Time Out Dubai 31
Food & Drink