Restaurant review: Chill Out, Dubai

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‘Well, this makes an ice change', I chattered from behind a misty puff of frosted breath. I was keeping a stiff upper lip, but my feet were quickly turning into Eskimo's house bricks and my nose was glowing as red as Rudolph's.

Despite my northern European upbringing - long, harsh winters spent shivering into hypothermic comas at bus stops, chipping the ice off gelid eyeballs just to blink, etc - I was beginning to agitate like a shell-shocked Shakin' Stevens operating a road drill. There was nothing left to do but lift the stainless steel mug of hot corn soup to my frozen mouth and drink - but that made me shudder even more.

We were hardly anticipating gourmet food at the Middle East's first and only ice lounge, but we didn't expect cup-a-soups either. OK, the temperature of the steaming broth provided brief respite from the minus-six degrees cold, but it tasted like something a polar bear had spat out in a fury. Nevertheless, we clutched our mugs with gloved hands and scanned the bar through padded hoods of fake fur as we waited for the next course.

From the seats to the tables, the (dry) bar to the walls, everything was fashioned from solid ice. An impressive sculpture of Dubai's prominent landmarks stretched across one side like a strip of frozen stalagmites, while a glacial chandelier cast its cool beams across the room in softly changing hues, from tundra blue to sunset red. Even the platters were made out of ice, as we discovered when the first dish arrived.

The cold cuts were a shade too cold.

A frigid sliver of smoked salmon had to be prised off the plate and defrosted in the mouth, and we could have played sub zero checkers with the beef pepperoni. We were soon looking forward to the canapés, but when they materialised they were as shocking and disastrous as a freak avalanche. What amounted to little more than a handful of mayonnaise-moistened morsels smudged onto squares of ordinary sliced bread were also stiffened with frost. Well, this was an ice lounge, after all.

My knees soon began to knock, but only with fright at the sight of the Caesar salad, which looked like a forgetful pensioner's window box in a cold snap. The leaves had withered in the chill, the prawns kept slipping off the icy plate at the suggestion of a knife, and pulling the tail-shell off with black woollen gloves was like playing the banjo in a pair of oven mitts - difficult and a bit ridiculous. So we consoled ourselves with the complimentary fruit juices, which were served in chunky chalices of ice.

There was cold comfort to be found in the sheepskin seat covers, but soon we were ready to shuffle off, hand back our quilted jackets and thaw out. There was no doubt about it - Chill Out is a massive gimmick. You can't spend much more than 40 minutes here - unless you want to turn into a fish finger - and the food is an example of what happens a decade or so following an afterthought. But as gimmicks go, it's a pretty interesting one - it just might take an ice age before you're likely to return.

Times Square Mall (04 341 8121). Open daily Sun-Thu 2pm-11pm, Fri-Sat 2pm-12midnight. Unlicensed. All major credit cards accepted.

The bill (for two)
2 x cover charge Dhs120
2 x soup du jour Dhs30
Cold cuts Dhs25
Canapés Dhs25
Caesar salad with prawns Dhs25
Total (excluding service) Dhs225

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