Original restaurant design needed in the industry

Experts in the food & beverage and design industry called for authentic designs that made sense culturally in the region's restaurants.

Speaking at B2B buyer-supplier event To The Table MEA 2016 at a panel discussion on restaurant design was Starwood Hotels & Resorts director of F&B EMEA Stefan Breg and Keane Brands founder and CEO Aidan Keane.

Breg revealed that the restaurant scene in the UAE is "largely franchised for a number of reasons" and the problem, according to him, with restaurant design is cookie-cutter concepts, with a few exceptions of evolution.

While Keane commented that the market has come back “better than ever”, he said: “X Factor is killing music by pasteurising the music, and the same thing is happening in this region with F&B where they’re shipping all the trophies but there’s no originality. Any foodie scene has to have originality.”

However, he admitted there are “isolated pockets of creativity starting to come through”, and continued: “You can’t separate design and concept and content and soul – all of them have to live together, otherwise they just become a pretty picture.”

Both Breg and Keane then confirmed that it was important for the UAE to sell its own culture to the world, arguing for the need for original Emirati concepts that can be exported to the worldwide market; Breg pointed to Emirati-owned restaurant Meylas as an example of what could be realised, while Keane said developing such concepts in what is termed as ‘old Dubai’ is what would work.

Keane concluded: “Design only gets celebrated if everything around it is good as well.”