Grosvenor House, Dubai's most stylish hotel

It is just 15 months since this interior design icon opened its doors with a champagne party for the media. AME Info returned to see how the hotel had settled down and to review its signature restaurant and bars.

Grosvenor House has two bars, each with a very special ambience: the Bar 44, a large but intimate cocktail lounge with panoramic views over the surrounding marina from the 44th floor, and the Buddha Bar with an interior modeled on a Buddhist temple complete with a giant golden Buddha.

This is far more than a bar, and is a complete late-night venue with its own restaurant, a huge window overlooking the marina as well as its own ground floor entrance. It becomes crowded but not excessively so due to an admission policy to regulate numbers.

Top venues

Both the Buddha Bar and Bar 44 are ideal places for pre or post dinner drinks, and would be great places to entertain or be entertained on a visit to Dubai. This is the real New Dubai, stylish, modern and wealthy.

Continue on to dinner and the hotel has two restaurants for serious diners: the Indego Indian fine dining experience with a Michelin two-star chef and The Mezzanine, opened by a former chef to Prince Charles and the only real rival to Gordon Ramsey's establishments in Dubai.

The quality of food and wine here is exceptional with a focus on English and French dishes and traditional rather than nouvelle cuisine. The portions are ample without being over-the-top. Everything is cooked to perfection while the quality of the meat and vegetables is of the highest order.

You can also order fine wine by the glass - useful in these days of less conspicuous wine consumption - and the cellar is strongest on New World wines, perhaps appropriately enough for a city like Dubai.

Minimalist heaven

Linger in this restaurant where the internal decor is straight from minimalist heaven and white from floor to ceiling apart from the colored upholstery of the chairs. It is a dreamy environment that adds to the enjoyment of the superb food and wine.

The hotel has 217 sea-facing rooms, and its 205 apartments all have views over the Dubai Marina. Room sizes of up to 55 square metres are quite exceptional even in the Middle East, and follow the minimalist design code albeit with extensive marble bathrooms and plasma televisions.

There is also a personalised butler service and 24-hour room service, plus the use of beach and pool facilities at the Royal Meridien nearby. And the spa has a total of seven treatment rooms for men and ladies as well as a hair and nail studio, hydropools, steam, sauna and jacuzzi, and private rooms.

So successful is the 45-storey Grosvenor House that the addition of an identical twin tower containing serviced apartments has just been announced which will offer even more dining possibilities.