Dubai has flirted with Korean food before, but HANU, newly opened at St. Regis Gardens on the Palm, is the first local spot to give the cuisine a luxe platform. The home-grown concept comes from Sunset Hospitality Group, with Seoul-born chef Kyung Soo Moon in charge of the menu—two details that explain why the room feels equal parts Dubai-chic and Seoul substance.
Hammered-bronze doors swing into a dim dining room dressed in carved wood screens and a single Korean pine that anchors the floor—no neon K-pop cues, just elegant accents.
The evening opens with a riff on yukhoe: hand-cut beef tartare, iced pears, a soy yolk you swirl yourself. Then comes a kimbap hand roll the width of a champagne bottle—oversize, yes, but executed with surgical neatness. The real experience begins once the charcoal ignites. Each marble-tiled table hides its own bespoke grill; servers lay down 24-hour bulgogi, snow-flake-fat short rib, or that splurge-worthy rib-eye that lands with a sizzle and zero smoke drama. Six condiments arrive in tiny celadon dishes including doenjang butter, miso-bright yuzu kosho, a gochujang that’s more velvet than fire.
Drinks lean cerebral. A roaming soju trolley pours regional bottles—some cloudy, some sharp, all dangerously smooth. Cocktails riff on Korea’s four trigrams: Geon (earth) comes out as a toasted-sesame Old Fashioned; Ri (fire) is a sparkling red-pepper highball that somehow behaves.
Staff will guide you through the grill ritual, but no one monologues about provenance.
The city needed a place where Korean technique could breathe in a five-star room without the gimmicks and HANU, smartly, offers just that experience. Book the ten-seat private room if you’re celebrating, the terrace if you’re people-watching, or the bar if you’re just curious about how good a sesame-oil martini can be. Either way, the Palm’s dining map just gained a compass point facing due East—and it’s delicious.
