Natural light floods into the airy space that is Delecto. The café is kitted out with shelves stacked with Murano-style glassware and has marble-topped tables laden with fancy tableware – the type you’d want to keep out of reach of kids or clumsy grown-ups. And there are carts loaded with sweet treats such as Turkish delight to welcome you at the entrance. As far as ambience goes, it has it in bucket-loads.
For a place that prides itself as a one-stop-shop for all things sweet, Delecto has quite a substantial and varied savoury menu, too. From Arabian starters and burgers, to sushi rolls and Italian staples, it’s got the globe pretty much covered. In fact, half of the restaurant is lined with live cooking stations manned by friendly chefs rustling up dishes.
But while variety might be the spice of life, it’s not usually the stuff great restaurants are made of. And so it goes here.
Our culinary trip starts in Japan with some spicy salmon rolls. They’re well made and full of flavour so we’re happy with our flying trip to the Far East.
Next up is Europe and a Niçoise salad, which has a neat addition of artichokes. It’s a decent plate of food, but we would have liked a sharper kick from the dressing.
The waitress suggests a capricciosa pizza for our main. The thin base struggles to support has a generous amount of toppings. It’s a pretty safe choice and doesn’t exactly excite us.
Desserts are meant to be where it’s at here, so we order the popcorn freakshake (the other choice is tiramisu flavour).
It certainly looks the part (see above), with caramelised corn stuck to the glass with Nutella. Sadly, the shake hasn’t been, well, shaken. The separated ingredients aren’t helped by the surprising inclusion of ice cubes that render it a little watery. Very disappointing.
Delecto has a lot going for it – location, staff, variety, ambience – but not great food.
The bill (for two)
1x Nicoise salad Dhs49
1x spicy salmon roll Dhs52
1x capricciosa Dhs65
1x popcorn shake Dhs28
1x large water Dhs12
Total (excluding taxes) Dhs206
The bottom line
A great idea until you get to the actual food.
