In Salwa, on Al Bida Al Taawun Street, is a restaurant unlike any other: its tables are inside a wooden dhow that came ashore and has not sailed for half a century.
The ship before the restaurant
The boom was built in Calicut, India, in 1979, an exact replica of the vessels that crossed the Arabian Sea until the early twentieth century. It reached Kuwait in 1980 when the hotel opened, and the restaurant opened inside it in 1982.
Hours
Daily from two in the afternoon until eleven at night, as the hotel’s restaurants page gives it. The same page lists outdoor seating, a terrace, vegetarian options and delivery.
What is served
Charcoal grilling is the heart of it: cuts of certified Angus and Australian Wagyu, alongside prawns, lobster and the fish familiar in Kuwait. The kitchen is described as bringing Indian, Arabic, European and American together on one menu.
The neighbour: the largest dhow in the world
On the same spot sits the Al Hashemi II, entered in the Guinness Book in 2002 as the largest wooden vessel in the world: 80.4 metres long, 18.7 metres wide, and an estimated two thousand five hundred tonnes. It is now a hall for conferences and large events.
Before you go
The hotel publishes no menu prices and no seating capacity, so booking and asking the price are both done by phone. The hours above are those listed on the official page on the day this was written.
Photo: a wooden dhow lit on the water. By Tux the penguin at Malayalam Wik, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Source: the restaurants page and the hotel page on the Radisson Blu Kuwait site, and the Al Hashemi II page on the Marafie Group site.
Kuwait One, once a week.
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