French is the grammar
The structure of the menu is unambiguously French. There is a terrine of foie gras with raspberry, a beef tartare served with fries and Comté, an onion soup, a baked brie with dukkah, a Beef Bourguignon. Then a rigatoni cacio e pepe with Comté and truffle, a chanterelle risotto, a ribeye with truffle sauce — the vocabulary of a Paris dining room, written out in full.
That grammar is what the kitchen is trained in, and the discipline shows in the sauce work more than anywhere else.
The Middle East is the accent
The accent arrives as ingredients, not as a second menu. Za'atar on the flatbread. Hummus under charcoal-grilled lamb kebab. Harissa with poached eggs and shrimp. Dukkah and buckwheat truffle honey with baked brie. Aleppo pepper noisette over Turkish eggs. Mint adjika with eggplant hummus. An Arabic curry beside black cod.
None of these are fusion in the bad sense — a French dish wearing a costume. They are seasonings used the way a French kitchen uses seasonings, chosen because they are what this city cooks with.
Where the two actually meet
The clearest example is the lamb. Charcoal-grilled kebab with tomato salad and hummus sits on the same section of the menu as a slow-cooked lamb shoulder in black pepper sauce. Same animal, two entirely different traditions, and the kitchen does not rank them.
The other is breakfast, which is where the mix is least self-conscious. Shakshuka and syrniki and a croque madame with duck and truffle are on one page, and nobody finds that strange, because that is genuinely how Dubai eats in the morning.
What to order to taste the argument
Three dishes make the case in one sitting. The charcoal-grilled lamb kebab for the Middle Eastern side. The Beef Bourguignon for the French. And, in between, the baked brie with dukkah and buckwheat truffle honey — a French cheese course seasoned from a Levantine pantry, which is the whole idea on a plate.