Hilton strengthens Middle East F&B team

L-R: Jean-Michel Dixte; Simon Lazarus; Andrew Joyce and other team members Ralf-Jan VanZeijl and Knud Bundgaard

Hilton Worldwide has expanded its Middle East F&B team with the appointments of director of food & beverage Andrew Joyce, and director of restaurant development Jean-Michel Dixte.

Joyce’s primary task is to oversee and guide the development, building and opening of all new F&B outlets, while Dixte will focus on devising new and original F&B concepts from fine dining through to bar design.

Both directors will be based at the company’s regional headquarters in Dubai and are part of a five-strong F&B team for the Middle East & Africa area.

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“With Andrew and Jean-Michel joining the region we now have five professionals with more than 100 years of industry experience between us. These are exciting times at Hilton Worldwide and we have an ambitious strategy to raise the bar in food and beverage operations across the Middle East & Africa. These latest appointments will go a long way to help us deliver this strategy,” said Simon Lazarus, senior area director of food & beverage for Hilton Worldwide, Middle East & Africa.

Joyce joins the company with over 25 years’ global experience, spanning Europe, Australia and the Middle East. He has worked with some of the industry’s biggest names including The Dorchester Hotel in London and Dubai’s Jumeirah Group, where he was part of the team responsible for the opening of the Madinat Jumeirah Souk and the Mina a’Salam hotel.

Dixte started his career at The Savoy Group, working first at Claridge’s and then The Savoy, two of London’s iconic hotels. He later joined Virgin Airways with specific responsibility for creating a five-star hospitality service at the firm’s Upper Class Lounge in London Heathrow. More recently Dixte has worked alongside a number of leading hotel groups in Africa and the Middle East as an F&B management consultant.

Hilton Worldwide is one of the biggest restaurant operators in the Middle East & Africa with responsibility for more than 320 food and beverage outlets across its 53 hotels in 17 countries. The company plans to open a further 36 hotels in the area over the next three to four years.