Al Mourjan Restaurants

This guide to Al Mourjan Restaurants on Doha's Corniche starts with a number the restaurant itself advertises: twelve years serving grilled fish and mezze on the bay. It follows the guide's own arithmetic back through a 2009 New York Times column that puts the opening closer to 2008, and weighs whether the mismatch is carelessness or a restaurant preferring to sound newer than it is. Along the way it counts the awards Al Mourjan claims and the hunger for the fresh and the now that reputation-driven kitchens chase. Best heard on the terrace at dusk, as West Bay's towers light up across the water.