Inside a 5-Star Sustainable Hotel with Abu Dhabi's First Vegan Room Experience
Released on 10/31/2023
[water falling]
In five star luxury hotels
there typically is a good amount of waste.
At the Emirates Palace, we want to make our purpose
to not add to the waste.
The date palms are an integral part of our resort ecosystem.
We've got more than 500 of them
and six types of distinct different dates.
We pollinate, they grow, we harvest.
All dates harvested in our hotel are incorporated
in the one or the other food experiences.
We do a date jam that accompanies our scones
for afternoon tea.
We use date syrup to produce sweetness
to various our desserts and we share them
with our staff doing Ramadan breaking fast.
Dates are an invaluable source for this region.
Harvested since millennia in Islam breaking the fast
with a date is the one thing everybody does.
The key efforts of Mandarin Oriental are to act
with responsibility wherever we can,
in the local communities, globally
whatever we can do to improve the environment.
[acoustic guitar music]
[chill piano music]
Welcome to the Emirates Palace, Mandarin Oriental Abu Dhabi.
We are a unique five star luxury hotel in Abu Dhabi,
the capital of the United Arab Emirates
and also the first hotel in region
that offers a vegan room experience.
[chill electric piano music]
Veganism has nothing to do with simplicity.
We realize that the vegan lifestyle is not limited
to food and beverage alone and this is
what we wanted to give to our guests
in a complete different but elevated luxury way.
These rooms are composition of many individual items
and all leading to making sure veganism chain is not broken.
So everything we do for mini byproducts, the sheets
the bathroom, manatees, everything is completely vegan.
Even our colleagues who are cleaning the rooms,
we never go in with leather shoes, so we go to an extent
that I believe we can be proud of.
While veganism is absolutely growing
and the lifestyle choice by so many,
it is currently mostly anchored
in the food and beverage industry.
Sourcing vegan linen, sourcing companies
that produce these guaranteed qualities
at this incredible high standard level has been
a real challenge, and it took us quite a while
to source the right manufacturer.
If we don't take care of the product that we have procured
we will disrupt the entire value chain.
Our cleaning cycle, the detergents we use are
all chemical-free and are all aligned
in the full veganism style.
The beauty about the bedsheets and the bed linen
is that they're incredibly, incredibly comfortable.
This is a small company that produces a very small quantity
of totally organic material, 100% organic byproduct.
So it is made of cupro, it is made of viscose.
And it's biodegradable, it feels good.
It's sensational. The guests absolutely love it.
They approach and say, Where can we buy the linen?
It became a real trend and we have made this part
of our retail line and we landed a hit.
As we started researching
about vegan lifestyle and vegan rooms in general
we realized there's so much more than just the bed sheet.
So we needed to start by eliminating the woolen carpet
which normally hotels are proud of.
There is no leather application, no leather trim.
Everything is exchanged by full leather.
Everything is exchanged by fabric and even the fabric,
everything is non-chemically treated.
One of the major objectives, of course
is to make sure all our products we offer and we have
in place in the room are cruelty-free, non-animal tested
and completely compliant to the vegan lifestyle.
Whether it is the form pillows that substitute either down
or feather pillows or the skincare products that we deploy,
everything is really, really taken care of,
individually and hand selected.
And therefore, the growing demand
the growing need, we serve it really, really well.
Whilst we consider it self-explanatory that
within the confines of our vegan rooms
you will only have a vegan room service menu.
Across the entire hotel, all our food offering
is specialized for vegan, but in a very smart way.
A vegan knows what to eat and what not to eat
so we don't indicate on the buffet this is the vegan area.
The major factor that assists us to be truly vegan
is the abundance of vegan food that we have
in this Middle Eastern region.
Mediterranean diets, Arabic food is all around hummus.
It's all about mutabal.
We've got these wonderful products that are plant-based
that are olive oil enriched, and that give us already
an organic variety of choices.
With our UAE partner Green Hearts,
everything is pesticide free.
It would not be advantageous for us if we build a greenhouse
and we artificially cool it or warm it.
So highly seasonal, organic.
It's just a natural continuation
of our environmental engagement
but particularly, focused for our Italian fine dining.
[jazzy music]
In the kitchen, when you see your ingredient growing,
you take care a bit more.
Almost like your baby, you know?
I think I'm really lucky because when
you have your garden, your place, you can go there
you can pick every day, you can discover
and you can do some different thing.
With one ingredient you can do really nice unique dish.
In our hotel, we grow this date.
We know there's so many variety, but this one I really love.
I use for the affogato on top of ice cream.
I cook with a big cream.
I make this gem I will put on top of the ice cream.
I mean, I'm also lucky because since when I'm in Abu Dhabi,
I start to use it in Italy, you cannot find a lot.
It's really nice.
My most popular vegan dish is bistecca mushroom.
Bistecca di fungo Italian
is four different contents of mushroom.
[chill music] [spoon banging]
I will use a vegan juice for the mushroom,
and same dish I use also hazelnut.
The local ingredient is really important for the chef.
I think it's something really unique.
You can say, Luca, this ingredient this morning
we just take from our garden.
It's super fresh. It's super...
I think give something a bit more, not for the experience.
[midtempo acoustic guitar music]
Overall, the hotel has 400 rooms and suites.
Our initial phase, which started two years ago,
we allocated six rooms in the hotel as it was a startup.
I believe the need for vegan suites is absolutely critical
because luxury is limitless
and vegan lifestyle is limitless too.
So, I think the expansion into larger accommodation
into better and more luxurious stay is just waiting for us.
We are confident that we have set a trend,
we are pioneering.
It's a little bit the wild west of what we are doing here.
We at the Emirates Palace have abolished
single-use plastic two years ago.
We are recycling whatever we can and I can only encourage
other people to follow suit and to help us
to create a better world, a more plant-based food chain,
and more awareness about a healthy lifestyle.
To define luxury at the Emirates Palace
is a real interesting task.
18 years ago when the hotel was built, luxury was defined
with gold, with granite, with marble, with opulence.
18 years later, it is defined by humility,
it is defined by experiences.
So our mission today is to satisfy customers
from all walks of life and introduce them to experiences
and to moments of delight that without us,
they probably couldn't have had.
[piano music and guitar music]
It was a pleasure having you
at the Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental,
and we hope to welcome you soon again.
[electric piano music]
How The Mark Hotel Gets Ready For The Met Gala, From Check-in to Red Carpet
Inside a 5-Star Sustainable Hotel with Abu Dhabi's First Vegan Room Experience
Sunset Tower
The Carlyle
The Old Clare Hotel
The Beaumont Hotel
How Tiny Is the Arlo Micro-Hotel in NYC's Hudson Square?
Inside Sweden's Frozen Icehotel
Bermuda’s Very Pink Hamilton Princess Hotel
City Meets Nature at 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge