A new take on the dining experience, where foodies eat at hidden locations, is taking Abu Dhabi by storm. Time Out went along to sample The Dinner Club by No. 57.
The Dinner Club by No. 57 is the toughest reservation list to get on in Abu Dhabi. The brainchild of Emirati friends Buthaina Al Mazrui and Alamira Noor Bani Hashim, it’s described as a ‘surprise underground party for your senses, but better’. It’s an almost guerilla approach to fine dining where they host themed dinner parties in unusual venues all across the city. It’s an exclusive invite-only affair where the selected participants only find out they’ve been invited a matter of days before the event.
Scheduled just once a month since last November, only ten lucky guests at a time are carefully selected by Buthaina and Alamira Noor. The pair originally planned The Dinner Club by No. 57 late last year as a means to give their future boutique café (No.57) a kick start before its actual proper opening. They had no inkling their simple idea would morph into an incredible marketing tool which would result in copious amounts of buzz and excitement. Indeed such has been the rapid rise in reputation that The Dinner Club by No.57 has become something of a culinary golden ticket in the UAE.
A few days before the next instalment of the secret supper club was due to take place, we got an unexpected knock on our front door. There, stood a delivery man who presented us with a plain envelope with nothing but our name on it. To our delight we found a map to the top secret location of the next supper meet-up. It’s all very clandestine, but with that comes the added anticipation and extra thrill of not knowing what to expect. There were simple directions, the last of which just said: ‘If you see something unusual, you are at the right place.’
A traditional setting
A few days later and the night in question had finally arrived. We followed the directions to the letter until we reached a traditional Emirati fort gate. Upon opening it we were greeted by a trail of candles ushering us along the ocean to a spectacular dining table. This place was like nothing we’d ever seen in Abu Dhabi before. It was a traditional setting, an old abandoned hookah bar located right on the Corniche where there are high-rises, malls, and expensive restaurants surrounding it. It’s one of the last remnants of the old city, with the buzz of the new circling around you. We dined in the wind tower and, with summer here, it was the perfect location to have one of the last outdoor dinners of the season. This month’s theme was that all the guests were women who held prominent positions in various companies, or were entrepreneurs.
‘It was an abandoned location that we used to visit almost every day before it shut down,’ says Alamira Noor. ‘This was at the café on the breakwater with beautiful wind tower pavilions scattered all around. We knew it would be quite difficult to get that location but we wanted the Abu Dhabi skyline and it was one of the best spots for it.’
Choosing a location is part of the fun for Alamira Noor and Buthaina. ‘Firstly we decide whether we want to have it indoors or outdoors (depending on the weather),’ adds Alamira Noor. ‘We then play a game of choosing the most unrealistic or difficult locations and always pick the craziest one. We just try to choose a location where you would never imagine enjoying a meal.’
But some of their locations do come with problems. ‘The first two locations we had – the construction site and the empty pool – had no toilets,’ smiles Alamira Noor. ‘The bus had no toilet, was quite small and was quite public. Getting power to those locations is also pretty challenging.’
Just as challenging for the ladies is choosing their favourite venue so far. ‘The bus parked in the Mina and the wind tower were top favourites because we got to share our city in a different way with our guests,’ adds Buthaina.
The key to our night’s event was that none of us had ever met before. Fashion label Fendi had sponsored the evening and they wanted to mix the traditional with the new, so that’s how the location and
the entrepreneurial female guest list was reflected.
And they gave complimentary Fendi clutches that were completely handmade to all of the diners as well as a copy of their book, Baguette. Buthaina and Alamira also give animal figurines as gifts at every dinner. They paint them different colours and this month’s were yellow.
The food was delicious; a three-course meal served personally by our hosts. Since we were dining right on the Corniche, seafood was abundant on the menu. We started with prawn and guacamole quinoa salad with dried lime, mushroom and barley flatbread and lentil galettes. The main course was a seafood paella accompanied by a surprise tart. We finished with a dessert of pain perdu. As the summer heat gently dissipated some jazz was played to accompany our dining and the conversation flowed effortlessly – despite all the diners being strangers to each other at the start of the evening. Previous dinner parties have gone on for as long as six hours, our hosts tell us.
Changing the way we eat
The attention to detail was astounding – every part of the dinner was intentionally planned including where each guest sat according to how well we’d interact with one another. By the end of our four-hour dinner, guests who had never met one another before were friends. Buthaina and Alamira Noor are changing the way Abu Dhabi eats, thinks and interacts, one meal at a time.
www.twitter.com/TheDinnerClub57.
