Dubai - 11
To see something of beauty being made even more beautiful is an enlightening facet of travel. Go ahead, walk into the lobby of the Four Seasons DIFC, ten years old next month, to be greeted by a bronze artwork, a new counter, specially designed by Mexican sculptor Héctor Esrawe and made in Milan. It was shipped over in three pieces, and re-assembled here, in situ in Dubai. It’s 4.3 metres across and it’s breathtakingly and strikingly beautiful.
Argentinian GM Federico Giovine, above, showed it off with the greatest pride. But then this is the hotel of beautiful people. Before lunch, Girlahead had 45 minutes actually to write. What bliss. Sitting in the hotel’s Penrose Lounge, it was tempting to procrastinate, merely to watch those BPs, beautiful people. All the while, chic young female servers in stylish Nina Ricci-look slightly-flared black chairman’s suite meetings frocks glided to and fro, serving requested coffees or, in Girlahead’s case, unrequested but much appreciated pen and paper. Later, an iPod power bank was brought at the drop of a hat.
She, the ignorissima who trades as Girlahead, initially thought Penrose is named for the early 20th century surrealist painter Roland Penrose. No, said guru Giovine, the lounge, by Martin Brudnizki, is a tribute to Roland Penrose’s nephew, the Nobel scientist Sir Roger Penrose, born in 1931. It is he who discovered the mathematical triangle that bears his name – see the triangle variously in the Lounge.
An outsider walked in in a pale lime pyjama suit, looking straight off a catwalk. She too was lunching in the Brasserie, manned since a year after opening by Californian culinarian Michael Mina. Beautiful people, beautiful burrata saladed here in full view, below. And great worldwide conversation. What more could one want for a start-the-week Dubai lunch, here in DIFC-1 (yes, it’s said the Emirate’s Financial Centre is such a success that a DIFC-2 and even a DIFC-3 are on the cards).
