How Jason Myers, Gert Kopera and Christian Gradnitzer plan to revolutionise the Jumeirah Group’s approach to restaurants and bars, leaving behind traditional F&B in order to develop brands that can be rolled out worldwide, in or out of their hotels

Don’t panic; three of Dubai’s most famous foodies have not ditched their forks in favour of a microphone. Instead, with the launch of Jumeirah RnB, Gert Kopera, Jason Myers and Christian Gradnitzer have signalled their intention to reject traditional hotel food and beverage and focus instead on creating restaurants and bars good enough to compete on the high street.
They may not be set to storm the charts, but this trio have a clear plan to score some number one hits with their new restaurant concepts — and perhaps even break some records as they attempt to change hotel dining as we know it.

The name may be new, but the idea behind it isn’t, asserts Jason Myers, general manager operations food and beverage and managing director Jumeirah Restaurants, who joined Jumeirah in May 2012 after a long career with restaurant companies including Ignite Group, Gondola Group and Greene King Plc.

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He refers to the company’s success with home-grown brand The Noodle House, which now operates a portfolio spanning 23 operating outlets, with many more signed, including London, which is set to open in a matter of weeks.

When asked who currently leads the hotel industry in the world of food and beverage, the three gentleman are typically cagey. Refusing to be drawn on other companies’ work, their answer is obviously ‘Jumeirah’, though Kopera, the Jumeirah Group senior vice president RnB and head honcho, admits he hasn’t always been so convinced.

In Kopera’s previous role, as vice president of food and beverage for Rosewood Hotels and Resorts — for whom he worked for 15 years before joining Jumeirah in January 2013 — when luxury hotelier Jumeirah launched casual dining brand The Noodle House back in 2002, he questioned the group’s rationale.

“We were asking ourselves ‘why would you put your own competition into your own hotel? Why would you put a price point that is different to a normal hotel or traditional hotel restaurant?’,” recalls Kopera. “And they were right. They were the first to do free-standing restaurants inside hotels and that is really what we are all about.”

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