Blu Mediterranean Flavours

Blu is the contemporary Mediterranean à-la-carte room at the Kempinski Hotel Ishtar, positioned as the modern counterpart to Rehan's classical Lebanese. It is the hotel's most-booked room for intimate dinners — a romantic first date, an anniversary, or the evening before a proposal at Akkad. The cooking is Mediterranean in the broadest sense: Italian, Spanish, French Riviera, Levantine techniques threaded through by the same Beirut-trained brigade.

The room is low-lit and cool-toned, with blue fabric banquettes, pale stone, and a full window wall to the Dead Sea. Tables are arranged for two and four with generous spacing — it is the most privacy-friendly room in the Kempinski cluster. The menu rotates seasonally: burrata with Jordanian heirloom tomatoes in summer, Sea-bass crudo with citrus and Jordanian Za'atar, hand-cut pasta with chanterelles from the Lebanese mountains in autumn, Iberico pork finished with Jordanian honey.

The wine list is the deepest white-wine list on the Dead Sea, with a full Ligurian, Provençal, and Greek sleeve that pair with the Mediterranean plates. The sommelier is happy to run pairings for tasting-menu guests.

Dress is smart-casual, service is unobtrusive, the pace is unhurried. Reservations are recommended but rarely impossible; weekends in March and October (peak Dead Sea months) book out a week ahead.

Blu is the Dead Sea's first-date room. The low light, the generous table spacing, the Mediterranean plates that invite sharing, and the full-length window wall to a sunset over Israel — the room does the work. For proposals that do not want the theatre of Akkad, Blu is the quieter alternative; request the window banquette.