Victorian Feels Shakespeare and Co.

May 24, 2016

After a meeting I had in Sharjah, me and my colleague decided to get ourselves a good lunch. And given the fact that I reside in Dubai, there’s no other place I can think of rather than Al Majz waterfront. Since we were in a hurry to grab lunch on a sunny day, we went on the first restaurant that we saw and that was Shakespeare and Co.

I have been meaning to try to dine at Shakespeare and Co. because I was really attracted to the way their restaurant looked like (thus the ambiance) but, I don’t know why I never really went there until just recently.

I might run out of words for all the good things I can describe the decor and ambiance of this restaurant! It’s just perfect! Imagine getting lost in a Victorian inspired place that made me feel like I’m one of the characters in Kirsten Dunst movie, Marie Antoinette. Soft pastels of blue and pink, those chandeliers, the tables… everything transported me to a place unlike other.

So for lunch I had a Tenderloin steak-medium rare with Potato Dauphinoise and my colleague got himself a Chicken Cordon Bleu. The serving was really fast and efficient, staff is very accommodating and I think their service is far too good among any other Dubai restaurants I have ever been to. The food presentation was divine, obviously with the pictures below! Everything was perfect except for my steak.

The thing is, I know my steak very well and I like it medium rare as always, but this specific steak that I had with Shakespeare and Co. disappointed me. The taste was too bland and the meat was too raw. However, I tried the Chicken and it was glorious, I literally fell in love with the it especially the sauteed potatoes with onion and bacon. The taste of the caramelized onion with potato and bacon is just wow.

When the food attendant approached and asked us for our experience, we frankly told him about my dilemma about my steak and how good the chicken was. The steak made me disappointed but all of it went gone when he asked what went wrong with it and offered to replace it instead. This is what hospitality is about! I really appreciate the effort to make a guest feel better but I told the food attendant that it is fine for me and I insisted on him not replacing my food but he fired back with another offer to give me a take away instead, but then I said no. The way he treated us and served us is already too much of a compensation to make me feel happy.

The surprising thing is that, the food attendant is too stubborn to make sure I feel good about the dining experience, hence he didn’t charged us for the steak. We only got to pay for one meal. ABSOLUTELY AMAZING of service that is. I mean, it’s literally fine for us to pay but he stepped out, did extra mile for his job to make sure guests enjoy everything. I forgot his name but I know he’ll remember us just in case he or his management reads this.

I would definitely recommend this restaurant to anyone out there. In a place full of options to dine with, this stood out among the rest not because they have the most amazing food ever but because of how committed they are with their crafts and values. They’re are a true representation of what hospitality is about.