A new final frontier

Dubai started out too shallow, too blingy. Now, it seems like the deck of Star Trek's Enterprise: Multicultural, future-ready, attracting the top names in food. Dig in

- By VIR SANGHVI

It took me 10 years to learn to love Dubai. In the beginning, I simply did not warm to it, and all the descriptions that the city's haters had used seemed appropriate: Too much bling, vulgar, shallow, imitative and derivative, Singapore without the culture, etc.

But over the years, my attitude became more positive. Either Dubai changed (which it has) or I have (more likely), or a combination of both.

My wife, whose views on Dubai used to be the same as mine, has also changed her mind. Stop seeing it as another Singapore, she says. It's not. It's the most international (and safest) city on the planet, kept afloat by a global assembly of talents. Sometimes, she believes, it's like looking at the deck of the Starship Enterprise, where every member of the crew has a different origin.

I thought of the Enterprise when we stayed at the Four Seasons in Jumeirah. The staff are a mini United Nations. It has managed to convey an air of timelessness, partly because it is regularly renovated, but mostly, because it has a restrained classy air that contrasts with the bling of many flashy Dubai hotels.