The role of the restaurant maître d’ is slowing dying. It has become a critically endangered species in the industry, and it should come as no surprise that it’s one of the most challenging positions to fill in a restaurant. It takes years to accrue the skills needed to be a maître d’. Not only do you need someone who has high-level technical skills and an in-depth knowledge of food and beverages, table service, management, organization, event planning, and time management, but you also need someone who has charm and charisma, a love of service and a genuine heartfelt sense of hospitality and kindness. You show me a restaurant with character and loyal clientele, and I’ll show you a talented maître d’ that runs it.

In an earlier life, I worked at an iconic hotel in Washington, DC for a few years. My family, duty-bound, visited me while I was there. They made two trips, with about 18 months between the two visits. On both visits, we dined at the Willard Room, the hotel’s historic fine dining restaurant, run by the legendary maître d’, Francisco.

Our first meal was made memorable by Francisco pulling out all the stops to make a colleague’s out of town family feel special. He fussed over us and flirted with us and whispered secret anecdotes about the history of the great dining room we were in. He had this old school authenticity that elevated every interaction.

The second time, we walked in without a reservation. Francisco recognised my family immediately, gave a little clap of genuine delight and greeted them individually by name. He danced us to the same table we had on our first visit because he remembered we liked the view. He informed us that he had the Châteauneuf-du-Pape in stock this time and would be delighted to bring us a bottle. He recalled what we ate last time and recommended similar dishes. He was charming and engaged and attended to our table like an artist attending his opus. He was the last great maître d’ that I ever worked with – part gate keeper, part confidant, part concierge. He was the heart and soul of the restaurant.

Sadly, over the years, this position has been replaced by a host or manager who merely makes the rounds at the end of a meal – a ticked box on a check list. The responsibilities have been diluted across several different positions in the restaurant.

Baring a few outliers, it seems the great relationship building skills have been largely forgotten, with a reliance on technology that provides us with speed and efficiency, but often at the cost of quality and authenticity. I’ve yet to see a social media strategy that alone creates long-lasting relationships with their customers. Social media can create awareness, but the real connection is built face to face.

I am a massive advocate for restaurants and food businesses upping their game when connecting with their audience and community, and I urge them all to look within their organisation to see where their heart and soul is. Don’t make the mistake of thinking a maître d’ is an old-fashioned role of an old, stuffy fine dining era. The title may be antiquated, but I would argue that the responsibilities are needed more than ever now.

MacDonald’s have recently spent $300 million acquiring a tech start-up called Dynamic Yield. This technology and its “decision logic” will change the drive-thru experience. As an example, Macdonald’s will scan your car plate, recall your order history, and offer up a screen with your favourite order before you even open your mouth. CEO Easterbrook calls it “mass personalization.” We’re no longer human, but a binary code of behaviour traits, habits, and statistics. Can anyone say Black Mirror Season Now?

Technology and algorithms and A.I are all very impressive and can tell us a great deal about our customers and their habits. However, they can’t tell us everything. They can’t tell us how each guest is feeling at any given meal. They can’t tell us if they’ve had a bad day, or what they are celebrating for, or commiserating over. Life can get messy sometimes, and technology does not work well with human emotions.

Because that’s what it boils down to – an emotional connection, making us feel truly included and welcome and part of something special.

Francisco used to tell me, “make every single person who comes through that door feel like they’re the only ones, and they will always come to see you.”

That’s what a good maître d’ will do. It’s a shame there aren’t many left.

Pizza is possibly one of the greatest things to ever come out of a cardboard box.  It is a single object, no complexity to its makeup and has no liquid components to spill, unlike curry.  It doesn’t degrade much in quality, even when put into its delivery box and driven through Dubai traffic for 40 minutes. Unlike breaded or fried foods, which suffer tremendously from car sickness and arrive soggy, emotional wrecks.

Pizza is a perfectly portable food; it doesn’t need a knife and fork, it can be reheated multiple times without a discernable loss in quality and by changing the toppings of vegetables and meat, it can easily be a single-dish meal that makes the entire family happy. Or just you – no one is judging.  

Yet, this is not about the pizza, but the vessel in which it arrives at your doorstop – the humble pizza box.  Typically, in my haste to get to the pizza, I usually don’t stop to appreciate the box in which it comes in.  The box is the unsung hero of the pizza experience.  Everyone focuses on the pizza and that little dollhouse plastic table that unexplainably comes free with some pizzas.

No one ever cares about the box.  Even Detective David Mills in the movie Seven only wanted to know what was in the box.  However, there are a few pizza joints that have been using the pizza box as a canvas for more than the ubiquitous cheerful chef running across the box carrying an oversized pizza clipart.

Globally, there have been some amazing examples of awesome artwork, with some pizza places collaborating with famous artists for limited edition pizza boxes.  I have my favourites – One is a Japanese Domino’s pizza box, one is the Pagliacci Sasquatch pizza box and the other is the Ed Hardy illustrated box for Tony’s Napoletana Pizza in San Francisco. 

However, looking locally, there is one Dubai based pizza place that is also creating fun and fresh pizza box artwork.  Pitfire Pizza are leading the way in rotating box art and work with some of Dubai’s best known and unknown artists.  Their inspiration is to give people a “little artistic solace and good vibes injection every time they order.” 

They have partnered with local artists like Dina Sami @creativebeingdina, Paul Bruwer of @thedominodubai, and Jelena Vucicevic from  @tobemadeofdarkness.  Even Bill, co-founder of Pitfire Pizza personally created one of their earlier designs.  He assimilates, gets inspiration and then creates.  His mind in an encyclopedia of visuals, according to his partner. 

For founders, Michelle and Bill, it is all about collaboration.  Through their artwork, they hope to remind people about the power of collaboration.  They say that collaboration “is the best way to progress. If you find the right individuals to collaborate with, you can elevate your business while focusing your energy on what you excel at. Whether you are in the restaurant business or not, we hope this can be a reminder that together we can do so much more.”

Have a look at their pizza box artwork below.

The Original

This started it all

Pizza Is Forever

By Dina Sami

Pizza Nirvana

This was done by Bill, the co-founder of Pitfire Pizza

Camel Pick Up

This was done by Paul Brewer

The Dark Pie

This was done by Jelena Vucicevic

Her name was Beasty, which I think was an ironic nickname, as she was anything but. She took me on my first real food adventure, proving that if you look hard enough, you can find adventure in the most unlikely of places.

The year was 2001, the place was Oxford, England. She was on the same university course as me, and we did group work together on some of the modules. She was street smart; I was book smart-ish. We were both well-travelled, and both loved food. However, the difference between us was she had explored, whereas I had just visited. She could tell you where the best brochettes in Fez could be found, or who sells the freshest Trdelnik in Prague. She knew where to go for Falafel in Borough Market or Räksmörgås in Stockholm’s Östermalms.

However, nothing about her was boastful, and she never tried to paint herself in a superior light. This was in a world before Instagram, and so her narrations of the dishes were the only way she could story tell her experiences. Beasty was and remained one of the original and purist foodies I have ever met. She wasn’t all high or mighty either – she also knew the best full English was at St Giles Café and the corner shop Spar sold a pretty good samosa in a pinch.

So, when she announced that she was taking me for lunch on Saturday, my heart beat a little faster. It was like going to The Louvre with Tom Hanks.

“We’re going for Yum Cha,” she said. “But we have to get there early because they get super busy and sell out quick. You’re gonna love it, I promise.”

“We’re going for what?” I asked. She had already hung up.

Throughout the week, I was trying to research more about this Yum Cha, but because I didn’t even know if I was saying it right, I had no idea where to look. Plus, I was a student, internet cafes ruled, and we still played snake on our Nokia phones. This was pre-Netflix, and I don’t think the term foodie had even been invented yet.

I saw Beasty again mid-week, briefly at a lecture and casually asked where we were going again for lunch as if I had forgotten and just remembered in passing.

“Yum Cha,” she said again. “Tea and Dim Sum,” she explained as if that should clear it all up. I was none the wiser. I had genuinely never heard of Dim Sum before. My food experiences had been restricted to British pub food and Lebanese and high street “Ethnic” cuisine. Mutton korma with mango chutney and sweet and sour chicken and prawn crackers was about as exotic as it got.

Little did I know this was going to be one of my most powerful food memories. A meal of the strange and unfamiliar. An experience that took me to faraway lands and exciting prospects. Languages, smells, sounds, flavours, and textures that were all alien to me and my mind and mouth tripped over each other, trying to comprehend everything.

I can’t even remember the name of the restaurant – Hidden Dragon Opium Bar, or something like that. I have vague recollections of a small entrance, through the back of a laundromat, past tattooed old men playing with dice and snakes. Of course, my memory has clearly been influenced and diluted over the years – this was Oxford, England – the City of Dreaming Spires. There is no way they have laundromats there.

The room was chaotic and loud, hot, and full of character and movement and smells. We sat at one of the few remaining tables, and I let Beasty take the lead. From the kitchen, a lady wheeled out a trolley of bamboo containers so tall, she could barely see over them. Beasty flagged her down like a trader at an auction. There was a flurry of conversation, a mix of English, and what I could only assume was Cantonese. It was a short, violent exchange ending in smiles and several seemingly random bamboo baskets being placed on our table.

“Har Gow, Xiaolongbao, Shumai, cha siu bao,” she said in a high pitched shrill and placed four different baskets on the table.

Beasty put one hand on the lid of the bamboo steamer baskets and looked at me dead in the eyes. “Before we begin, I have something important to tell you,” she said.

“Chopsticks,” she announced, holding up her set, in case I was not familiar with them. “A few rules you need to know about chopsticks. Never stick them straight down into your food. It’s considered bad luck. It resembles incense sticks for the dead and will bring bad health.”

“Don’t bang the sticks against your bowl,” she continued. “Beggars used to do this for attention, and it will bring poverty to your family.”

“Always eat the last grain of rice in your bowl. This means your future wife will have smooth, perfect skin. Never lean across the table for food. Serve tea to others before yourself. Never take the last dim sum without permission and don’t use your hands.”

As I sat there in front of those towers of bamboo containers, trying to remember all these rules, Beasty poured me the first of many cups of fragrant, floral jasmine tea. It was light, clean and refreshing and a million miles away from the milky Tetley’s or Lipton I was used to.

I lost track of how many different Dim Sum we tried, but four stuck in my memory, and I can recall how they looked and tasted, with considerable accuracy.

Har Gow is the purse shaped shrimp dumplings, with perfect pleating, evenly crimped along the edge. They had smooth, tacky skin, with a fleshy shrimp filling that was toothsome and lusciously tender.

Shumai was a meaty, crowd-pleasing little open-faced dumpling, with minced pork, shrimp, mushroom and bamboo shoots. A thin egg dough wrapper with an orange garnish dot of crab roe and carrot top. This dumpling was bouncy, fresh, and slightly sticky with delicious juices that coated your mouth.

The Cha Siu Boa blew my mind. Maybe it was all the antioxidants coursing through my veins from the tea, but I was in awe of these little clouds of perfection. Soft, pale, steamed bread buns, (steamed bread, what a time to be alive!) ever so sweet with piping hot, sticky sweet BBQ filling. Even today, they still provide me with a considerable amount of satisfaction when I tear them in half.

I broke a cardinal rule by reaching over to grab another one. Beasty stabbed me in the back of the hand with her chopstick.

The Xiaolongbao to this day remains my favourite. I had never experienced anything like that before. A pork and crab soup dumpling. So many questions raced through my mind, as the gyoza skin burst in my mouth and the hot, salty soup coated my tongue and throat. Who makes these? How did you get the soup in there? Why have I never had these before?

The trolley kept on coming, the bamboo basket towers depleting as they made their way across the busy room. Our teapot was refilled continuously, and the noise was relentless. It was a blurry few hours of sensory overload. It was magnificent.

We stumbled out into the murky sunlight and walked back to the bus stop. I felt as if we had returned from somewhere exotic and alien. I felt like we had been part of a secret club. I felt we had been on an adventure, and it was then I realised the power of food, with its ability to transport you thousands of miles with a single mouthful.

Amazing.

Google started in a garage.  Amazon started in an empty swimming pool.  Apple started in a cupboard beneath the stairs by a boy with a lightning scar on his forehead and a dark coloured turtleneck.

EAT DXB started in Lowe.

The other night, some of the top chefs in the city, each one of them an expert in their chosen discipline came together around a quiet table in a back room of Lowe for a few hours of food, connection, and discussion.

Artisanal chocolates, ramens, charcoal and black cod, puffed pita bread with wagyu, lamb saddle, dark chocolate caramel kibbeh, bone broth, baos and falafel.  These are the dishes these chefs produce, and yet these chefs are not defined by the dishes they make.

The invite was for a 7:30 pm Iftar. So, of course, we started at 8:15 pm.  Arriving late is a chef’s way to compensate for always having to send food out on time in their own restaurants. It’s how they balance their lives.

Jesse Blake and Kate Christou, the chefs of Lowe very kindly agreed to host the dinner – a big ask, considering the audience they were serving.  You would have thought they would roll out their most tried and tested dishes – the big hits that would have the audience raising their lighters and singing along.  No, they announced that the recipes they were serving had never been tried before.  Not once. “The flavours all work – in my head,” Jesse said, while nonchalantly seasoning something in a bowl.

David Chang of Momofuku fame tells a story of how he visited Joe Beef, a restaurant in Montreal and ended up talking to chef-owners David McMillan and Frédéric Morin at the bar.  They had never met before, but sought each other out, as like-minded individuals are prone to do.  Their conversation ended with Chang stepping into their kitchen and showing them how to cook fried cauliflower the Momofuku way.  A coming together of talent, a sharing of knowledge, an improvement of the industry.

As founders of EAT DXB, our message was clear – we must look up from our day-to-day to see the change-making connections that lie beyond.  Restaurants must serve more than just food.  We have a responsibility to contribute to a better life for everyone, and we believe in this strongly.  This is at the very essence of EAT DXB.

The menu, much like Kate and Jesse themselves, was all about contrast; The Ying and the Yang.  One of the “never-served-before” dishes was a cured king scallop with yuzukosho with iced horseradish.  It was like dunking your head into the icy waters of the North Sea – refreshing, bracing and deeply satisfying.

There is something powerful about breaking bread together – it builds trust and confidence in your fellow diners, and a special community is born if only for a few hours, allowing each person to relax and speak freely and passionately about what infuriates and excites them.  Each one of the chefs represented a hugely diverse array of experiences and yet found connection and commonality in their conversations with one another.

One of the mains we had was the lamb collar with pureed roasted cauliflower.  If the scallops were of the sea, refreshing, light and tangy, the lamb was all about the earth, full of umami, terroir, soil, and substance.

Out of the hundreds of mini-conversations that were had over the evening, one topic resonated loudly and frequently.  Support – and not just those within the industry supporting each other, although that is much needed too.

There is a need for support from the extended community as well.  Support from landlords, suppliers, and customers – the full ecosystem.  Support from government and industry reform.  Support to deal with mental health and abuse in restaurants, to develop and coach the leaders of the future, to create and innovate.  Support to find a healthy work-life balance and to make home-grown F&B a viable career in Dubai.

Jesse and Kate took a few moments to explain to their guests about their food philosophy and their ambitions for Lowe.  They spoke with sincerity and gratitude that they were able to create and innovate in their own kitchen.  They spoke of growing their own produce on site and have plans for an aquaponic system so they can farm their own fish.  They acknowledged the support they had received by the community as well.

They also explained that the dessert was designed as a palette cleanser, a soft refresher to bring the meal to a gentle end.  If that was a gentle end, then they should have written season 8 of Game of Thrones.

If the scallops were the North Sea, the dessert, sour gooseberry, sweet ginger, and persimmon was like a chemical peel for the mouth.  It was sharp, intense, and concentrated.  It was also delicious.

When it comes to support, in my opinion, the F&B industry globally, has a habit of disconnecting itself from other industries, and within itself becomes isolated and distant from one another.  The industry suffers significantly from the weight of expectation.  The expectation that restaurants are the magic bullet that will save retail, that the restaurant industry will solve over-farming, and sustainability and our world’s oceans or that restaurants can survive the crippling effects of disruptive online business models.  But perhaps most importantly, the expectation to single-handedly keep Instagram filled with content.

However, what is clear is that support is a two-way street, and people in other industries have faced similar challenges in their past.  We would do well to take inspiration from parallel industries, from overcoming obstacles,  introducing regulations, and collaborating so we can power through to a better tomorrow.

What struck me most was this was a table of highly influential individuals with talent, drive, and ambition.  More importantly, these were people with purpose and determination and a vested interest in Dubai’s F&B landscape.  If talent like this is leading the charge for local home-grown F&B, then we are in safe hands.  A new wave is coming, Dubai.

Thanks to:
Kate Christou, Jesse Blake and the team at Lowe.
Tom Arnel for hosting
And the attendees: –
Liz Stevenson, Reif Othman, Alex Stumpf, Mohammad Orfali, Scott Price, Neha Mishra, Kathy Johnston, Paul Frangie and Akmal Anuar.

Tom Arnel and I met over a good morning smoothie and a chia pudding at Comptoir 102.  It was like a one-sided blind date.   I, of course, knew what he looked like.  He was the Lord of the Flat White, the King of the Smashed Avo and the Protector of the Cafe Culture.  However, he didn’t know what I looked like, so I told him I would be reading a copy of the 1977 New York Zagat Guide and wearing tweed.  Ok, that didn’t happen.  I actually just waved at him from across the restaurant.  My tweed was at the dry cleaners.

We decided to create EAT DXB.  Not immediately, because we spoke a lot about the industry and our aspirations and hopes for it.  In fact, our conversation lasted about a year, on and off, but it all lead to EAT DXB.  Below is a years conversation, paraphrased into a single page.

The restaurant industry.  Three simple words, yet a world that is far from simple.

Dubai is home to 3.1 million people, which swells to 4.3 million during the day.  Every lunchtime, millions of meals are prepared and consumed across restaurants, cafeterias, dining halls, vending machines and office desks every single day.

It’s difficult to comprehend the number of meals needed to feed such a hungry city.  If everyone eats at least two meals a day, across 7 days, over 43 million meals are prepared, cooked and eaten by people of over 200 nationalities every week in Dubai.

It is a monster industry of supply chains, logistics, agriculture, farming, labour, and manufacturing.  It is a behemoth whose enormity is difficult to fathom.

Yet, zoom all the way down and focus on a single dining table in a restaurant and you will find a world of magic and hope.  The restaurant industry is as much about emotions and identities as it is about production lines and food chains.

The food and beverage dynamic is the heartbeat of Dubai.  It is a true reflection of the spirit of the time and place.  Dubai is a collection of districts, a melting pot of cultures and a series of moments.  It is a mass of moving parts with millions of heartbeats, stories, and memories, all colliding and crashing into one another.  Yet it is food that is our union, and restaurants are the great connectors between us all.

For centuries, we lived in village communities, that were characterised by intimate relationships, shared experiences and limited degrees of separation.  Through urbanization, all that is being challenged, and we find ourselves becoming alienated from our tribes.

However, we see the F&B industry as its own community, with the power and responsibility to contribute to a better life for everyone.  The responsibility of our industry to support and elevate our community is of utmost importance to the survival and longevity of the many elements that make up the ecosystem.

It’s time to reconnect and support local.

This is why EAT DXB was created.   A local food movement with three core values.  Celebrate, Support and Strengthen.

Celebrate the talents and efforts of the local F&B community – the restauranteurs, chefs, servers, suppliers, and customers that help create this industry that connects and inspires us all.

Support the larger F&B space at all levels with insights, events, community, time and space to allow the industry to thrive.

Strengthen our city’s offering as to establish it as a globally recognised food destination, where global and local talent is nurtured to innovate and create at the highest possible level within the Dubai F&B landscape.

We want to be united in passion, aligned in our goals and understanding of our diversity.

EAT DXB is a collection of like-minded individuals who want to make Dubai a better place, through the creation of a thriving F&B industry. With a focus on everything local; restaurants and their customers, business owners, and their landlords, suppliers, and chefs. Our community is concerned with the relationships that affect us all.

We are launching in June 2019, with two powerful events.

EAT THE CITY – June 16th, 2019.

A collaborative dinner prepared by some of the city’s most successful and renowned chefs, in partnership with students from the International Centre for Culinary Arts (ICCA). A special set menu offering. Ticketed event with all profit going to Dubai Cares. Each course will be explained by one of the guest chefs, imparting know-how and sharing experiences of working together with his/her apprentices.

EAT TALKS – June 17th, 2019

Recognising that the food and beverage industry has the opportunity to participate in improving some of the city’s most pressing challenges. A speaker lead event featuring key F&B change makers from Dubai and the broader region.

EAT TALKS is an industry and consumer event and will appeal to all with a social conscience and appetite for exploring the best ways of working.  Chef and owner of Bull&Roo cafes & restaurants Tom Arnel will play host to the first significant gathering of EAT DXB.  A speaker line up of chefs, restaurateurs other critical parts of the food puzzle will contribute with informed discussion on food in the city now and in the future.

The food community of Dubai is coming together for EAT DXB.  Engaging discussions, events, and activations promoting creativity, curiosity and shared know-how between different parts of the food ecosystem.

Join the change makers and trend avoiders; a group of like-minded individuals who aim to make Dubai a better place, one meal at a time.

Save the dates, ladies and gentlemen.  Booking details and full speaker line up to be released very soon.

Just by looking at the number of food delivery drivers zipping between cars and darting around the communities of Dubai, you know that food delivery and third-party apps have made a massive impact on how we consume our food.

According to a recent KPMG report, 60% of UAE consumers use a food app on their smart phone.  There is no doubt about it – food delivery has become part of our everyday lives.

If you were to believe a recent Capital Economics report, 3rd party apps are contributing positively to the F&B industry.  According to Capital Economics, a company specialising in both commissioned and independent economic reports, Deliveroo is supporting 3,200 jobs across the UAE and providing 399 million dhs of incremental revenue for the restaurant sector.

However, I’ve spoken to many local restaurateurs about this situation, and they tell a very different story.

If you go beyond the façade of convenience and instant gratification, there is an argument that says third-party delivery apps are slowly destroying the restaurants we love.  In fact, one local restaurateur, who preferred to remain anonymous, describes them as aggressive, arrogant and heartless.

For smaller restaurants that run on incredibly tight profit margins, it paints a desperately sad story.

Here’s how it works.  All the third-party delivery companies reach out to as many restaurants as possible and offer their services.  The objective is to be the platform with the most choice and variety.  The ordering, payment and delivery service is known as the “full stack” solution.  With some platforms, you can take their delivery option or not, with others, the full stack is the only option.

They all want you to sign exclusivity, meaning you can’t be listed with anyone else.  To encourage that, they offer you a lower commission rate of 25%.  If you don’t sign exclusivity, it will be 30% commission or upwards.  In some cases, restaurants lose money on these orders.

David Chang, from Ugly Delicious and Momofuku, said of this subject, “I think it’s fool’s gold for the restaurant owner. The reality is, you’re only helping out the delivery company. You’re not helping out the restaurant.”

Then, because the app’s listings are a hot mess of thousands of restaurants, some real, some just kitchens, it becomes almost impossible for the consumer to make any meaningful choice.  So, it becomes a sterile, price-driven marketplace – each restaurant is encouraged to offer more and more discounts to get noticed and obtain orders, and the survivors are the ones who can control their margins better.

One restauranteur I spoke to likened it to being a drug addict.  As a restauranteur, you become dependent on an income stream that might ultimately be running you into the ground.   It’s also worth noting that despite crazy growth and high revenue streams, most delivery platforms are not profitable yet.  There is a hope that through sheer volume of restaurants and orders, profit will eventually come.  (An indicator of this is that already these companies are looking to diversify into running their own kitchens – perhaps as a further attempt to find profitable revenue streams)

The combination of an industry that has very thin margins with an industry that has upside-down margins is not a wise or healthy combination.

Another local restaurant owner said, “These are platforms owned and run by tech experts or accountants who only see numbers without feeling or connection.  The amount of sweat and blood, people with families, depend on this craft and life.  It hurts me as a restauranteur, seeing my fellow restaurant owners suffering like this.”

As the income of these restaurants gets chipped away by commission and discounts, they are forced to take measures to merely survive.  It is this state of survival that is doing the most damage to our industry, in my opinion.  Restaurants will compromise on ingredient quality, reluctantly ordering cheaper and cheaper ingredients to make their margins.  They will spend less on marketing, relying on their exploitative delivery partners to bring them customers, thus making them even more dependent on them.  They will hire the cheapest of labour, thus diminishing their service standards.  They will cook and produce food that is commercially safe, thus killing creativity and innovation and all that will be left are functional food spaces that are barely holding on.

Let’s not mention the amount of plastic used in delivery.  A container for the salad and another one for the dressing.  One for the croutons and one for the grated cheese.  Such irresponsible waste, but it costs money to use ethical packaging, and when your margins are so low, you have to choose the cheap plastic that kills our planet.

It seems to go deeper and deeper the more I talk to restaurant owners.  With the rise of these so-called virtual kitchens, restaurant operators are effectively handing over their recipes and know-how to these companies.  One 3rd party delivery company is now offering what they call “food brokerage” where they negotiate bulk deals to get restaurants cheaper prices from suppliers.  Sounds great, but in reality, you are handing over your entire supply chain to them, and at some point, you have to question what part of your business are you left controlling? So, I ask the restaurateurs of Dubai, do you want to be the operator that these companies learn from, for them to be your direct competitor tomorrow? Actually, let me correct that – they’re your competitors today.

So, are these online delivery companies good or bad for restaurant business?  Why do so many restaurants sign up with them if they are so bad?  These are valid questions, and there are obviously some advantages to partnering with the third-party delivery guys.

To illustrate this, a restaurant boss I spoke to claims that if he doesn’t use these delivery platforms, he would have to shut his doors tomorrow.  Another restaurant went from almost zero delivery orders to over 1,000 in their first month of signing with a 3rd party delivery company, so clearly there are positives to come from this kind of partnership.  Furthermore, they have an enormous audience reach and have invested billions into logistics and technology infrastructure, and it is clear there is an optimal way to benefit from them.

However, I think the advice is never let them overtake your own in-house and take away business, which must remain your priority.  Develop a strong brand first, with a good following and the delivery platform should just enhance your existing business.  If your biggest customer is that electronic device that feeds you anonymous orders, then you need to re-work your business model because you’re heading for trouble.  Restaurants have already lost their direct connection to their customers, so they need to think twice about handing over access to their recipes, techniques, and supply chain.  These are what makes them unique and special.

Finally, if you have been paying attention over the years, you will know that I am a big advocate for community dining – I believe restaurants are the lifeblood of a community.  It is where I learnt my trade, where my family celebrates milestones and where countless stories and memories are made.  So again, I urge you to support local – visit your favourite restaurants and allow them the financial resources to re-invest into their businesses and community with training and innovation and expansion.

#SupportLocal.

I recently went for lunch with the Serb to a new place on Beach Road that looks like the love child of Comptoir 102 and Al Serkal Avenue.  A repurposed villa with some beautiful design detailing.   However, this isn’t a review of the lunch we had.  Our lunch was unfortunately farcical.  It was missing serious fundamentals of service and hospitality, and it just wouldn’t be fair to review it as it was.

Obviously, they were newly opened, and at the end of our ordeal, I asked how long they had been open for business.  The dreaded “we’re in our soft opening” reply came back at me from a waitress clearly out of her depth.  I asked what the difference would be once the soft opening period ended.

“We’ll have more staff and a new menu.” She said.  I nodded as if that made sense.  It didn’t, though.

I paid our bill, (420 dhs for two) retrieved my camera lens cap from the pot wash after the waitress had cleared it for some reason and left that beautiful villa behind along with a little piece of my soul.  My only suggestion for them is to close the doors for a few more weeks of training.

There is “soft opening,” and then there is simply “not fu*&@#g ready.”

This got me thinking about the restaurant industry’s’ “soft opening” claims.  It is unique to the hospitality world – I can’t think of any other industry that does anything similar.

Imagine a soft opening in the theatre.

“Welcome to our Broadway musical of The Lion King.  We’re in our soft opening, so the cast might not remember all the words, and we skip a few scenes as well, including the bit where we lift Simba up on that big rock.”

I’ve done many soft openings in the past, and they should be used to iron out any operational issues, and hopefully minimise any cock-ups when we open.  They also give the team a bit of confidence, so they don’t end up shaking in the corner on opening day.  All the training and testing and menu development should have been done pre-soft opening.  A restaurant’s soft opening is about tweaking and perfecting, and it is of utmost importance to do it correctly.

In an ideal scenario, there will be two days of “friends and family,” partly as a way to celebrate a little as it gives the team an opportunity to show off their new restaurant.  It also minimises the risk of lawsuits in the case of food poisoning.

Often, restaurants also invite the contractors, project managers, designers, etc who played an important part in building the place.  This helps when the dimmed lighting system starts acting like it’s a schizophrenic nightclub, as they have the right people there to fix it.

Then they run three days of dry runs, where they operate an invite-only guest list, and in exchange, they ask for honest opinions and feedback about everything, from the service, food & bathroom cleanliness to perceived value for money.  Each session increases in covers and complexity until they are operating in the same environment that will be the norm.

All the dry runs, dummy runs, friends and family days are complimentary, and there is an understanding that in exchange for free food, there is a certain understanding and flexibility from the customers and an expectation for honest, constructive feedback.

After all this is done, a decision is made on whether the restaurant is ready to start charging full price for their product and services.  I’ve been in situations where we have had to go back to the training room after this week of soft opening because we just weren’t ready.  However, make no mistake about it, as a restaurant, if you engage in a transactional exchange, you are open for business, soft, semi or hard.

What you shouldn’t do is open your doors to the public, charge full price for the menu, request no feedback from the guests and then hope a “soft opening” excuse will allow forgiveness for a miserable experience.

Anyway, I’m off to a dentist appointment at my new local clinic.  It’s a soft opening, so he can only offer a light flossing.

My January media feed has been quite revealing about how 2019 is going to play out. Two things are happening that I want to comment on.

Firstly, restaurants are finally understanding the power of collaboration and experience.

Second, delivery apps are learning about the limitations they have in talking to and connecting with their marketplace.

Already in 2019, I have seen more collaboration between Dubai restaurants and chefs than I saw in the whole of 2018 combined.  It appears restaurants are finally fighting back with the biggest weapon in their arsenal – the experience.

Chef Reif has been on a mini-tour of Dubai, partnering with talented chefs in their own kitchens to bring one off exclusives events to the foodies of Dubai.  He has partnered with Chef Roberto from Waka and Craft Café, Chef Omar from Slab, the team at High Joint, Chef Luigi at Akiba Dori and the guys at Roti Rollers.

I asked Reif why he has embarked on this little food tour.  He explained to me that it was partly to remind his followers that he is still alive and cooking, but also to work with home grown brands, give motivation to a slow market, and provide some inspiration to his fellow chefs. According to Reif, it’s not about ego, but about sharing knowledge, pushing boundaries to do what they love to do and to share it with the people of Dubai.  If that’s not inspiring enough, part of the sales of these events are going to Chef Reif’s foundation that supports a school for children in Zanzibar.

Foodiva has reformatted her dine around dinner event and is collaborating with Nick and Scott from Folly et al. Chef Alex from BB Social and Chef Matt from Boca Dubai all in one kitchen, serving one delicious experience.  Chef Matt is also collaborating with Bahraini chef, Tala Bashmi at Boca for one night only.

Pitfire Pizza and Sticky Rice are mashing together their cultures to create something special and unique for their communities and Chef Mohammad Orfali and Tom Aikens are partnering up with an East meets West collaboration at Pots Pans & Boards.

I’m even getting in on it – I mixed a BK Whopper with some MaccyD fries the other day. What a time to be alive.

Jokes aside, this is super encouraging and shows the resilience and determination that the restaurant industry is known for.   Perhaps finally our restaurateurs are understanding where their strengths are; in storytelling, experiences and community.

On the other hand, January has also shown off the glaring weaknesses of the third-party delivery apps.  Over January, at least four times per week, I received push notifications for discounted delivery meals.  Get 10% off your next order.  50% off up to 20 Dhs.  Use code Eat50 for an additional 50% off.  When trying to stimulate their audience, all they have to offer is bulk discounts and brand dilution.

So, here’s the thing – when properly motivated, restaurants are exceedingly powerful.  They can stir emotions, create memories and inspire communities with flavours, stories, textures and tastes.

All the delivery apps can do at the moment is to offer discounted poke bowls and hope Netflix drops another TV series.

Ding Ding – round two.