TimeOut Abu Dhabi – July 26, 2018

Eating Out

Eating Out

34 July 25 – August 7 2018 timeoutdubai.com

Time Out

reviews

anonymously

and pays for

its meals.

THE BILL (for two)

1x bar snacks basket Dhs55

1x beef pudding Dhs95

1x fish and chips Dhs90

1x seasonal veg Dhs18

Total (incl service) Dhs253

The Lion by Nick & Scott

Revamped gastropub now helmed by the award-winning local chef duo. But can they do it again?

Open Sun-Thu 8am-3am,

Fri-Sat 11am-3am. Licensed.

The H Dubai, Sheikh Zayed

Road (04 359 2366).

G

reat pub grub is no

easy feat. It comes

with huge responsibility

to honouring and

honing old-school favourites,

and a great deal of expectation.

And there’ll rarely be more of

the latter for a pub opening in

Dubai than that accompanying

the arrival of The Lion by Nick

& Scott. This is, after all, the

award-winning chef duo behind

Time Out Dubai’s Best European

Restaurant 2018, folly by Nick &

Scott. So, can they make it roar?

Formerly the culinarily

abysmal The Black Lion, the

chefs took over the bar back

in April. The décor was given a

nominal refresh (peaking at the

introduction of live sports on

TV), but on the food front the

changes are signiocant.

It’s a long-held dream of the

chef pair (who met while working

for Gordon Ramsay in London)

to own a pub, and of that the

menu is telling.

Toasties and cups of tea

sit next to match day roasts,

burgers and biryanis. It’s classic

and contemporary in the way of

all great, modern British pubs.

Keen to try

as much as

possible, we

kick off with

a sharing

basket of bar

snacks. Quail

egg Scotch

eggs feature

rich, runny

yolks, while the

herby pavour of

the beef sausage

rolls bursts out

from the light,

pastry casing –

despite being

accompanied

by a strangely

sweet sauce.

(Our kingdom for some HP.)

On to mains, and the osh

and chips is hit and miss – the

meaty white osh is well cooked,

but the chips

are vastly

underdone.

A beef

pudding looks

every bit the

part, housed

in buttery

pastry, but

the beautifully

rich, delicious

gravy can’t mask

the toughness

of the beef.

It’s served with

a generous

dollop of creamy

mash (yum)

but no greens,

so we order

the seasonal veg. Only to be

surprised by the arrival of a dish

of not-so-pub-classic pak choi.

While the menu is on track,

the execution doesn’t quite hit

highs we’d hoped for. Nick and

Scott have shown they can do

it with folly, so with a little one-

tuning, there’s no reason why

this Lion shouldn’t become king

of the concrete jungle.

THE BOTTOM LINE Decent, but

some dishes miss the mark.

The fish and

chips is a bit

hit and miss

34 TOD_1824_EO REVIEW 1_9773652.indd 34 22/07/2018 13:00:50