Our plane makes a sharp left turn over an arid desert tapestry of burnt taupe-toned sand, before descending into Saudi Arabia’s urban capital, Riyadh.
I’m here for the opening of world-celebrated and multi-Michelin star chef Daniel Boulud’s newest restaurant: Café Boulud in Riyadh at Four Seasons Hotel Riyadh. Boulud’s Saudi Arabian debut marks his 22nd restaurant and his second in the Middle East, following Brasserie Boulud in Dubai.
Ahead of its grand opening, I sat down with chef Daniel Boulud to speak about the pleasures and setbacks of opening a restaurant in Riyadh in 2024, and the secrets of building an enduring brand.
Daniel Boulud is not a name that needs much introduction, whether you class yourself as a foodie or not. With restaurants across the globe, including thirteen in New York City alone, as well as nine recipe books, the phrase ‘gourmet French cooking’ and ‘Daniel Boulud’ have surely become globally synonymous. A tenacious and innovative chef, Daniel Boulud’s forward-thinking enthusiasm is an enigmatic addition to Saudi Arabia’s ever-changing, dynamic cultural scene. And the proof lies at the new Café Boulud, Riyadh.
Café Boulud by Daniel Boulud, Riyadh
“My earliest memories of food and cooking start in Lyon, France,” Boulud explains, “I was born and raised on a farm and grew up in the kitchen, helping my mother and grandmother prepare dishes for the whole family from produce we had either raised or grown from scratch on our farm land.” This grounding introduction to good-quality produce informed the four pillars Boulud now bases each of his ventures around: La Tradition; La Saison; La Pottage; Le Voyage. All four play their part on the menu at Café Boulud Riyadh, helmed by executive chef Nicolas Lemoyne.
When it comes to tradition and voyage, as Boulud tells us, he has learnt and kept with him “how to embrace the local market, the local traditions, and the original cuisine, and then how to elevate these classic dishes at three Michelin-star restaurants.”
In Saudi Arabia, scent leads the way: “the souks in Riyadh have this amazing smell. I love how producers and sellers often focus on one thing. And the saffron here is incredible,” Boulud enthuses. So too are pomegranate seeds and dried fruit and nuts that appear as garnishes on dishes at Café Boulud, including the spice-roasted cauliflower served with tahini yoghurt.
A standout on the menu is the Arabica Cream, which fuses a traditional French custard dessert with the flavours of Arabian coffee that were introduced to Boulud when he spent three months in Cannes – over 30 years ago – working as a private chef to a Saudi Arabian family. Caramel is infused with cardamon, saffron, cinnamon, star anise, cloves, and whole coffee beans before being added to the custard steam cooked in a bain-marie. As the rich scent lingers in the kitchen, Daniel notes that “the connection and long-lasting memories of tradition and taste stick with me forever.”
In Riyadh, for the first time, Boulud is experimenting with non-alcoholic wine for cooking. For him, this means adding vinegar as well as lots of spice to enhance the body of a braised dish. He’s also scouring vineyards across Europe for an elegant non-alcoholic red to suit a plate. The menu here champions traditional food-firing materials used in local kitchens (look to the steakhouse and rotisserie options), but also strongly nods to French cuisine with a walk-through cheese and (non-alcoholic) wine library curated by award-winning cheese master Phillippe Caillouet.
Though seeking out local ingredients and techniques, there is still a considered synergy between the menus at Boulud’s global restaurants. You’ll always find a soup on offer, for example, though dishes are never carbon copied. Boulud explains over the steam of a bubbling Vichyssoise fashioned from fennel, potato, onion, kefir lime and leek: “I travelled all over France, working in three-star restaurants to really get to know the essence of French cooking. Speciality cooking, or ‘cuisine bourgeois’ as we say in French, is about giving a new face to home cooking, which is directly based on the market and the seasonal produce available.”
Flitting between a variety of incredible flavours, from ginger-dressed blue fin tuna to freshly baked madeleines with citrus, I have to ask: what is the one ingredient chef Daniel Boulud always hunts down in a new place?
“Wherever I am, I always look for local honey suppliers. You can learn so much about the fauna of a region through the taste of local honey, from the flowers, to the mountains, to the rivers. I always incorporate honey from local suppliers in my menus.”
Four Seasons Hotel Riyadh
All contribute to the affluent-feeling of space, but it’s the large windows framing the view that steal the limelight. By day, the horizon stretches out beyond a low-laying concrete jungle of earth-toned houses and shops, trailing off into an unfathomably-vast stretch of desert that far surpasses the eyeline. By night, the grid system of wide-lane roads that puncture the city are flooded by red and white streams of traffic.
Inside, towering green hydrangeas topple over a flowing water fountain in the lobby; staff hand out freshly poured Arabian coffee – infused with cardamon, cloves, cinnamon, saffron, and ginger – alongside fresh dates; and there’s a discreet entrance into the opulent Kingdom Shopping Centre where, lined with more perfumeries and designer brands than you can count, you can shop what feels like everything – always with a fine-tuned attention to glamour.
Women now make up 45 per cent of the tourism workforce in Saudi Arabia, while Saudi Arabian law ensures that at least 30 per cent of employees at companies with 100 workers or more are Saudi nationals. Four Seasons Hotel Riyadh is surpassing these figures, and it’s something that Daniel Boulud also pays close attention to.
“Saudi would like change and they are making change. I want to make sure that hospitality is a part of this change,” he explains, continuing to say that “at Café Boulud Riyadh we want to help a new generation of chefs and we want to see more women cooking – across all of our restaurants we have lots of female chefs and I am sure there are plenty of talented Saudi women. I would like them to come to my kitchen and cook with us.”
Since 2023, Saudi Arabia has welcomed over 100 million international tourists, a figure that continues to grow. “Did I know five years ago I would be in Riyadh? Maybe not,” Boulud reflects, “but I knew that there were changes happening here that were unique to the world – and I wanted to be a part of that.”
In 2019, Saudi Arabia released the tourism eVisa to encourage visitors – the same year that the abaya was no longer made compulsory dress (except inside religious buildings) for women to wear in public. Now, the abaya is a personal and religious choice and modest clothing is encouraged, to respect cultural custom.
When considering what to wear in Saudi Arabia, ensure your shoulders, elbows, and knees are covered at all times, and opt for fabrics that are lightweight (so that you can endure the 40 degree-plus temperatures) but not too sheer.
Lead image: Café Boulud at Four Seasons Hotel Riyadh
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