Salmontini Le Bistro: Scottish Salmon, French Bistro Spirit and an Abu Dhabi Reboot

The database was wrong: Salmontini is open

Salmontini Le Bistro is exactly why live verification matters. The old intelligence sheet carried the Abu Dhabi restaurant as closed, yet the brand’s current official site lists an active branch at Le Royal Méridien with telephone numbers, reservation links and opening hours. Independent current listings also show the venue trading. The correction is therefore clear: this is not a closure story. It is a relatively young Abu Dhabi outpost of a concept whose roots stretch back through Dubai and Lebanon, built around founder Hussni Ajlani’s long-running fascination with premium Scottish smoked salmon and the social warmth of a neighbourhood bistro.

Salmon is the signature, not the whole menu

The name can make the restaurant sound more specialised than it actually is. Salmontini’s current Abu Dhabi material highlights traditional smoked salmon, salmon en croûte and salmon tartare, but the menu also moves into steak, sushi, seafood and breakfast dishes. One of the enduring signatures is the Entrecôte St Germain, a rib-eye served with the restaurant’s closely guarded sauce and fine-cut fries. Reviews of the Abu Dhabi branch have also focused on sushi nights and dishes such as sea bass, salmon carpaccio and the Salmontini roll. That breadth explains the ‘Le Bistro’ positioning: the venue is designed to cover breakfast through dinner rather than operate only as a destination seafood restaurant.

A French-bistro room in the centre of the city

The Abu Dhabi branch sits at Le Royal Méridien on Sheikh Khalifa Street, with a glass-fronted terrace, open preparation counter and a design inspired partly by the Scottish coast. The official site currently lists opening from 7am until midnight from Sunday to Thursday, extending to 1am on Friday and Saturday, with reservations on +971 2 557 4460 or +971 58 553 7078. For Simply Abu Dhabi, the strongest editorial angle is the correction itself: a venue the old database would have wrongly excluded is demonstrably active. Treat it as a flexible city-centre bistro, start with the smoked salmon that built the brand, then explore the steak or sushi depending on the time of day.

Practical details

Location: Le Royal Méridien Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa Street, Abu Dhabi, UAE
Cuisine: French bistro, seafood, sushi and international
Telephone: +971 2 557 4460 / +971 58 553 7078
Current status correction: Official Salmontini pages show the Abu Dhabi branch operating
Editorial status: Open – stale Closed database label corrected