With a new executive lunch and the much-touted health benefits of Japanese cuisine, ZUMA Dubai is wooing the health-conscious suited set. We spoke to Executive Chef Colin Clague about the Ebisu power lunch.

ZUMA Dubai recently launched a power lunch with a set menu of favourite dishes for Dh110, served in 45 minutes.

The most popular dishes from the a la carte menu have been combined into a four-course meal. The Ebisu menu has a health focus, with palate cleansers and detox options; as well as seaweed which is packed with vitamins and minerals.

Busy executives often skip lunch, hoping to increase their productivity, but studies show that it has quite the opposite effect. A 2008 study by Employment Law Advisory Services in the UK found that only 12% of Britain’s office staff took a full hour away from the office for lunch, 52 % took less than 30 minutes, and the 4% who left their desks to get lunch ate it on the way back to their office. In the short term, many office workers believe skipping lunch will improve job performance, but in the long-term it affects concentration and can lead to taking time off work due to illness.

Show these stats to the powers that be and head to ZUMA’s restaurant and lounge, which is offering a set lunch menu on week days. Each meal starts with miso soup, followed by three courses from a selection of ZUMA’s most popular dishes, including seaweed salad with sesame wafu sauce; the nigiri selection of seabass, salmon and tuna; and the assorted vegetable and hammour tempura.

On weekdays, lunch is served from 12.30 pm to 3 pm, and dinner from 7 pm to midnight. Due to popular demand, Zuma has extended its weekend trading to include dinner on Saturdays. The dinner hours on Friday and Saturday are from 7 pm to midnight.

We spoke to Colin Clague, Executive Chef at ZUMA Dubai, about the ‘Ebisu’ executive lunch, the health benefits of Japanese cuisine and the ultimate indulgence when you?re tired of counting calories.

Tell us a bit about yourself and your association with Zuma.

I?ve been with ZUMA for eight years now. I opened ZUMA in London as Head Chef with Rainer Becker, who is the owner of ZUMA, along with Arjun Waney and the Waney family. Rainer was my Executive Chef many years ago back in Park Hyatt Sydney. He moved on to Tokyo and we kept in contact. In the meanwhile, I worked with a lot of Asian restaurants around the world. When in 2002 he decided to open ZUMA in London, he was looking for a Head Chef and he called me. Prior to that I was working in Burj al Arab in Dubai. So after seven years in London, I’m here and I’m sure we?ll achieve the same success with ZUMA in Dubai.

What was the idea behind the new ‘Ebisu’ executive lunch?

The idea behind it is to create two types of restaurants, if you like. We are trying to appeal to the lunch as well as dinner crowd. To appeal to the lunch set, we wanted to give the same quality food ? quickly. Keeping in mind the limited time for lunch that executives have, the food has to go out in less than an hour, and it?s great if it?s at a reasonable price! The idea is that if they love the lunch, they?ll come back for dinner.

In today’s recession-hit times and mad rush to meet deadlines, do you think a multi-course lunch for executives would be popular or even practical?

Going by the rush you see here today, I think there is definitely a market for it. You cannot work on an empty stomach. Work pressures or not, you need to take an hour out to recharge your batteries so you can be more efficient throughout the day. Lunch is the perfect opportunity for that. We also get a lot of people doing business over lunch.

I think there is a market in the DIFC for a top-quality restaurant. We use the same ingredients for lunch as we do for dinner. There?s no down-sizing on quality.

Why is Japanese cuisine considered amongst the healthiest?

It?s very light. Even with the fried ingredients, such as the tempuras, the batter is much lighter. It?s done at a higher temperature, so less oil goes into the food. The majority of the food is just raw or char-grilled. So as healthy goes, you?re not going to get much healthier than this. And the ingredients we use are the best you’re going to get in Dubai. I’m very particular about the quality.

Japanese food is very healthy. You simply have to look at the longevity of the Japanese so they must be doing something right!

Does the simple yet artistic presentation of Japanese food have more to do with aesthetics or is there a health-balance rationale behind it?

There is definitely a rationale behind it. For the Japanese everything is balanced it’s seasonal. In Japan you wouldn’t get anything that wasn’t in season on your plate. But this being Dubai, we don’t have a season as such. So everything has to be imported. But the way you eat it, the way you present it on the plate is thought out and traditional. For instance a lot of people eat the Maki as the last course because they don’t want to fill up. There is also an emphasis on balanced food, the five tastes and so on.

What is your signature dish on the menu?

We?re doing Taste of Dubai this year and we have our signature dishes there – the chilli fried squid with lime, and we also do a barley miso chicken. That’s been on the menu in Zuma London for six years. It’s never going to come off; it’s a signature dish, the same as the squid. They are the biggest sellers.

Sometimes being good can be boring. What dish would you recommend to someone who wants to be sinfully indulgent for a change?

Special Chocolate desert. I could lie and say there are no calories in it, but it certainly is wicked indulgence. It’s not very Japanese, as their deserts aren’t really for the European palate. This one is for people who need a chocolate fix. We actually took the Special Chocolate off the menu at ZUMA London and we still sell 300 a week.

For reservations contact +971 4 4255660, email: reservations@zumarestaurant.com

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