Carmen Rueda captains the UAE’s only all-dessert fine dining restaurant, taking guests on a journey beyond their imaginations. She shares her inspiration and reveals more about the new menu themed around the spices of the Silk Road
The interior of Brix lies behind an unassuming façade located at Jumeirah Fishing Harbour in Dubai, where executive pastry chef Carmen Rueda helms an all-female team to whip up a sensorial experience that is truly one-of-a-kind in the UAE. Brix is the country’s only fine dining restaurant that serves an all-dessert menu, and Carmen is a well-travelled chef whose passion for dessert in general, and chocolate in particular, made her a shoo-in to take up this role.
Carmen launches into her story passionately. “I’m from a very small town in Spain and I always had the vision of cooking and creating. I decided to move to Madrid and study culinary arts for four years.” It’s here that the pastry bug bit her. From there on, she travelled the world and her culinary prowess is testament to her dedication to her craft and the highly awarded restaurants she’s worked in over the years: from El Bulli in Spain to The Fat Duck in England and 2AM: dessert bar in Singapore, just to name a few.
And from there, Dubai. “I love that there are so many cultures in one place, and there is much to learn. With Brix, I was offered something unique.
Do you know, there are just approximately 10 dessert-only restaurants in the world. So it’s a very hard concept, for a customer to come in and understand what we’re doing. At the same time, it offers a lot of challenges – in a good way.”
She continues: “The biggest question is always how could I have a menu based only on desserts? But when I create these, I do it from the point of view of a full restaurant service – especially because my background is primarily Michelin-starred restaurants. In those restaurants, there are anywhere from 14 to 30 courses, so dessert had to be powerful but very light and never very sweet. That’s what I follow here. At Brix, we have desserts that are full of flavour with a lot of texture, but they are not sweet and never heavy. Of course, I use butter, cream and flour but I don’t abuse them; I apply them in a way where they give me exactly what I am looking for and nothing more.”
The other aspect Carmen truly cares about is storytelling through her menu. She and her team stand behind the countertop, talking about the dishes being served and telling their story. The lighting ebbs and flows according to the mood, the music changes and so does the cutlery. “It’s more than just the food that talks to you,” says Carmen.
Brix has two menus at any given time: a shorter four-course tasting and the full six course. The new six-course menu debuting this year is titled ‘Silk Road’. “This theme gave us so many options in terms of food, flavours, textures and history.” Countries and their spices that have inspired the menu include China, India, Persia, Turkey, Greece and Italy.
With such a range of flavours to play with, another concern is guests who may be confused by the ingredients Carmen and her team uses. With preconceived notions about what desserts taste like, this chef has her work cut out for her. She mentions walnuts as an example, which are pickled on her menu. “Most of us have tasted walnuts, and perhaps caramelised ones. But how many people have had it pickled? Obviously it’s not a main ingredient but all these small touches can give you a different perspective,” she adds. It’s why her menus never describe all these elements, only to allow guests to truly savour the flavours without imagining what it might taste like. “I just prefer people know about the countries, the concept and then just be open to explore,” Carmen says.
Carmen then whisks me off on a journey down the Silk Road, where caramelised seaweed adds a touch of saltiness to the dish from China and where a kaleidoscope of spices from India such as saffron, ginger and curry leaves add a different kind of heat to my tongue. Persia’s dessert is surprisingly citrusy while also being paired with bread, while Turkey’s dessert lends a little smokiness to the palate along with the expected pistachio and pomegranate. Finally, Greece’s dish plays with fermentation in a creative way and Italy serves up notes of chocolate, coffee and hazelnut for a sweeter finish. Dishes are paired with a complementary beverage, thoughtfully created with the flavours of the country the dessert takes inspiration from. We won’t spoil the surprise but there is a coffee kombucha en route that will delight your senses.
There’s a lot keeping Carmen busy – from finalising the new menu to hosting a pop-up every week at the Qasr Al Sarab Desert Resort by Anantara. There’s also ongoing work for the impending opening of Café Brix just a few doors down. The all-day café will serve breakfast, speciality coffee, desserts (naturally) and offer cakes for any kind of occasion.
Talking about how she creates her menus, Carmen says, “We like to play a lot with the element of surprise while bringing forth childhood memories for everyone. People are in this routine of ‘work, go out, sleep and repeat’ and potentially have stressful lives – that sometimes they forget the good moments and our small touches can bring those back.”
