CEO of COCA Holding International and founder of the Mango Tree chain of Thai restaurants, Chef Pitaya Phanphensophon, on spreading roots in the Middle East.

On F&B in the Middle East
It has changed a lot since I first came to Dubai five years ago. There are a lot of big brand names here now, which is good for the residents and makes all of us in the industry work harder.

Service has improved too; my complaint when I first came was that the service used to be very cold, industrial in style and systematic, but that is no longer the case.

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The food variety and quality here is also very good, but sometimes I feel we are also being made to pay for it compared to what you can get in places like the Far East.

The secret to a successful restaurant
Serving good food is a must. It’s like going to see a doctor – you should never question whether the doctor is good or not, you presume that the doctor you go to see knows what he or she is doing. The difference comes from the staff.

They all have to share the same idea that whoever walks through your door needs to be treated as if they are your friend that you have invited over for dinner; you let your guests sit wherever they want, offer them everything they might need, more drinks, dessert, anything you can think of to make them comfortable.

How global conditions differ
Spending power in London is still very high but we see it drop as we come to the Middle East and then drop again in the Far East. In the Far East people tend to save more and they have different spending priorities than F&B. They tend to spend more money on fashions, on cars, that sort of thing.

Against dining promotions
I think you tend to lure the wrong crowd into your restaurants. For a start, we do not make that much of a profit on our food here in the Middle East.

Maybe in the UK you can put discounts on food and then people will spend that 50% they saved on drink, but that isn’t the case here. In the Far East it is also popular to provide an all-you-can-eat promotion for a certain amount of money with drinks.

But then eating just becomes about quantities. It takes the focus away from what we eat to how much we eat.

Global variation
We do realise that different parts of the world have different eating habits just as we realise that some ingredients in different parts of the world are different.

So we make the portions a bit bigger here in the Middle East compared to Thailand for example. I was shocked to see the portion sizes here. In London as well as the Far East people tend to accept smaller portions.

We also adapt ingredients to the local environment, using hammour fish here for example. But making sure we are maintaining a consistent brand experience is always our main focus.

Favourite ingredients
Garlic can do magic. For me the only downside is that people tend to use too much of it. It has nutritional values and medical benefits too. And anchovies. They really get your taste buds working.