I had the privilege of dining at a unique concept restaurant yesterday that will be opening shortly in Dubai. Named the AtmosFire, it is located just after Burger Fuel on Jumeirah Road, Umm Suqeim. It is supposedly a paradise for meat lovers. Diners can experience some of the finest meats sourced from around the world, butchered and aged on-site and then cooked to perfection right in the centre of the restaurant in full view of the guests. There’s a massive floor to ceiling brick chimney which is the centre of all action. Guests can opt to sit around this open barbecue pit or on the sides. But wherever you sit, you can see all the action that goes into preparing a variety of scrumptious meat.
AtmosFire creates the perfect ambience from the moment you reach out to open the doors. The door handles are shaped like meat cleavers!!! A clear indication of what lies ahead.
And once inside, your eyes are naturally drawn to the humongous brick chimney that forms the heart of this unique dining concept. You can see the chefs preparing, grilling, barbecuing and plating the dishes from wherever you’re seated.
There are two types of dining options available – Explore the Pit and Today’s Market List. If you are looking to try all kinds of meat, then Explore the Pit is definitely for you. Priced at AED 225 (per person), it’s definitely reasonable, given the good portion size and the variety of dishes that you can try. If you are someone who just wants a particular cut of meat or not keen on trying many dishes, then you can get your pick from the Market List for that day and cooked to your preference.
This is a non-alcohol serving restaurant but that doesn’t mean that they have the usual mocktails. They serve an amazing selection of shrub drinks which are fermented fruit concentrates. You can choose from sweet shrubs and sour & savoury shrubs. We ordered a Red Berry Shrub and a Carrot & Ginger Shrub. Both are concentrates containing raw organic apple cider vinegar and must be diluted before consuming. I wasn’t too sure if having apple cider vinegar in it would be a good thing since it has a very strong and odd smell and taste. But the Red Berry Shrub drove my prejudices away. Now I’m a fan of the red berry mix with the infamous apple cider vinegar. Another mocktail that we tried and loved was the cool and refreshing Fresh Ginger Lemonade.
Having settled down, we opted for the grazing menu with Explore the Pit served along with homemade bread and selected sauces and sides.
I must say the homemade bread and butter accompaniment was exceptional!!!
For starters, we chose Mango Chilli Prawns with mango chilli shrub salsa and Sticky Angus Rib Meat with hot pepper salsa. I almost did a salsa after having the prawns as it was an absolute winner. True to its name, the Sticky Angus Rib was sticky and tender but I did expect a little spicier touch to the salsa.
For the mains, we got to try all the items on their menu. We ordered only one portion of each as the quantity served is huge and I had to leave some space for the dessert later 😊
First up was Asada Grill, which is Barbecue Brisket with Chimichurri Sauce. Sounds quite ‘MasterChef’ like. The brisket was cooked to perfection, tender and flavourful but the sauce was a let-down in terms of flavour.
Next up, Plancha – Beef Back Ribs with BBQ Basting Sauce. Again, the meat was cooked perfectly but it missed out on punch factor. It tasted similar to the Sticky Angus Rib starter.
The Fire Pit menu promised a variety of sausages, but they only had beef sausage to serve for the day. The sausage was bang on flavour and texture and made up for the flavour lost in the previous dishes.
From the Clay Oven, came Pulled Lamb Leg with Potato Gratin. Even though the lamb was of melt-in-the-mouth consistency, both the lamb and its gravy had an overpowering salty taste. This dish was a complete disappointment.
The last main was Robata Grill – Jerk Chicken with roasted pineapple salsa. The chicken was cooked to perfection and the combination of pineapple with chicken was appreciable.
Cooking the meat perfectly is one thing the chefs here at AtmosFire are definitely consistent with.
We also ordered some sides and sauces to accompany the mains. Though the menu stated several items, only some were available at the time. Maybe once they open, the full menu will be available.
Sides – the creamy texture and sweet taste of the squash in contrast to the chilli seeds makes the Mashed Summer Squash a must-try. Dirty Rice is kind of similar to fried rice and was truly delish.
Sauces – The Peri-Peri Chutney well-balanced in terms of its spicy and tangy notes. The Creamy foraged Mushroom Sauce was the hero.
To finish off this dining experience, we had a bunch of desserts.
The Chocolate Caprus Cake was enjoyable; chocolatey, yet not overly sweet. It would have been better had it been served with the orange chocolate ice-cream as mentioned in the menu. Looks like they are yet to finalise the complete menu.
The Pina Colada dessert is a modernized version of the very famous drink with the same name. So, I was naturally curious to see whether it would live up to the expectations of every Pina Colada lover. The presentation was eye-catchy; whipped cream shaped like a dome, lying on a bed of pineapple salsa and topped with grated coconut. The overall taste was nice, but the coconut was dry and it left a flaky feeling in the mouth afterwards.
Lastly, we had the Pecan Pie, served with cream and caramelised nuts. It was warm and delectable. The caramel, however, had a bitter taste to it.
All in all, the presentation of all the dishes was fabulous, so full marks to that. Much attention has been paid to create a good ambience. The staff were very welcoming and knowledgeable but the service was a little slow given that this was a weekday and the restaurant was only half full. Some dishes were great, but some missed the mark, in terms of flavour. If they work on that then this restaurant will definitely turn into a meat lovers’ paradise in no time.
Rating:
| Ambience | 5 |
| Food | 3.5 |
| Service | 4.5 |
| Value for money | 3.5 |
| Overall | 4/5 |
Lizbethology 