Lee Koh Hua, the chef de cuisine for Hakkasan's restaurant at the Emirates Palace, and his kitchen staff prepare food for guests. Jaime Puebla / The National
Lee Koh Hua, the chef de cuisine for Hakkasan's restaurant at the Emirates Palace, and his kitchen staff prepare food for guests. Jaime Puebla / The National
Lee Koh Hua, the chef de cuisine for Hakkasan's restaurant at the Emirates Palace, and his kitchen staff prepare food for guests. Jaime Puebla / The National
Lee Koh Hua, the chef de cuisine for Hakkasan's restaurant at the Emirates Palace, and his kitchen staff prepare food for guests. Jaime Puebla / The National

Hakkasan turns up heat on The Ivy


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Hakkasan, the upmarket Chinese restaurant brand owned by the Abu Dhabi company Tasameem, plans to open an outlet in Jumeirah Emirates Towers in Dubai in November.

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It will join another popular London restaurant brand, The Ivy, which is opening a branch there over the summer.

It will be Hakkasan's second branch in the UAE, with the first opening in the Emirates Palace in the capital a year ago. Hakkasan's Michelin-starred flagship restaurant is in London's West End.

"I think we wanted to establish ourselves in Abu Dhabi first, partly because our owner is in Abu Dhabi," said Niall Howard, the chief executive of Hakkasan. "That was the priority, but we always had eyes on Dubai, and really it took us this time to find a suitable site."

Tasameem bought its shares in the Hakkasan Group in 2007 from Alan Yau, the Hong Kong restaurateur who also founded the Wagamama chain.

Its Dubai restaurant will be wholly owned by Hakkasan, involving an investment of "millions of dollars", Mr Howard said, declining to provide a specific figure.

The restaurant is taking on 150 staff. All of its chefs must be Chinese.

The company has further expansion plans in the region.

"We have taken offices in Dubai for our expansion plans and we have a managing director now based in Dubai," Mr Howard said.

"We may not open too many Hakkasans in the region because we don't want to dilute the brand," Mr Howard said.

"But having said that, we will end up with several, and we're looking at locations such as Bahrain, Doha and, slightly further afield, Beirut."

He said the company also planned to open a restaurant in Mumbai in the coming weeks.

The Hakkasan group also owns Yauatcha, a Michelin-starred London dim sum restaurant, which it wants to expand through the region.

"We're quite happy to roll out a number and we'll be starting that this year," Mr Howard said. "We're actively looking for a site in Dubai and we have a site in Abu Dhabi."

He said the Abu Dhabi Yauatcha was not likely to open before the end of this year.

Hakkasan also has a restaurant in the Fontainebleau Resort in Miami.

The smuggler

Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple. 
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.

Khouli conviction

Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.

For sale

A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.

- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico

- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000

- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950