Steak and seafood restaurant aboard a dhow (hotel outlet) in Anjafa, Salwa, Kuwait

Al Boom Steak & Seafood

Dinner Aboard a Dhow That Stays Put

3.5 of 5

Al Boom is a wooden dhow that will never put to sea, and that is exactly its charm. It was built in Calicut, on India's Malabar coast, in 1979, as a replica of the trading boats that worked the Arabian Sea into the early twentieth century. It arrived in Kuwait in 1980 for the opening of the hotel that is now the Radisson Blu, and the restaurant opened aboard in 1982. Yes, it is a hotel restaurant. It is also a ship, and very few restaurants anywhere can say that.

Inside it is all teak, gold leaf and copper, the cabin of a merchant captain who did well for himself. The kitchen works a charcoal grill. The steak side has leaned on Certified Angus Beef and Australian Wagyu, and the seafood side on shrimp, lobster and the fish Kuwaitis actually eat. The menu borrows from Indian, Arabic, European and American cooking, which on a boat built in Kerala for a Gulf hotel feels about right. Order the fish. You are sitting on a dhow on the Gulf coast, and this is not the night for chicken.

Ask about the outdoor deck, opened a few years ago, where you can hear the sea while you eat. After dinner, take coffee in the Captain's Diwaniya, which is the right way to end any long meal in Kuwait. The hotel sits on the coast road south of the city center, a short taxi ride from downtown and worth it for the room alone.

Order this

Charcoal-grilled Gulf fish, Grilled shrimp or lobster, A Certified Angus Beef or Australian Wagyu cut, Coffee in the Captain's Diwaniya afterwards

The damage

$$$

Go

Evenings in the cooler months, when the outdoor deck by the water makes the most sense; book ahead

Find it

Radisson Blu Hotel, Al Bida'a Road (Al Taawun Street), Kuwait

Website

radissonhotels.com