The annual ranking with the 50 Best Restaurants in the Middle East and North Africa was unveiled this Monday (30th) at a face-to-face ceremony in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates.
THE second edition of Middle East & North Africa’s 50 Best Restaurants first crowned the restaurant Orfali Bros Bistro in Dubai which last year had ranked sixth.
The restaurant is run by three brother chefs: Mohammed Orfali is the head chef, while wassim and Omar Orfali are pastry chefs. The house in the Wasl 51 region serves contemporary cuisine based on its own vision of Arabic cuisine.
Also from Dubai, who appears in second place is the restaurant Tresind Studio on the island of Palm Jumeirah.
Captained by chef Himanshu Saini, the venue serves food that showcases both new and familiar flavors of indian cuisine – it is also considered to be the only indian restaurant in the uae with a michelin star.
Presented by none other than chef Massimo Bottura, third place went to Fusions by Tala in the city of Manama, capital of Bahrain.
commanded by chef Tala Bashmi , the restaurant was the one that most climbed positions on the list, since last year it was in 39th place. It was also voted the best restaurant in Bahrain, where, according to the 50 best, chef Bashmi gained a reputation for reinventing Bahraini comfort food classics into contemporary dishes.
Check out the following Top 10 on the 2023 Top 50 Restaurants in the Middle East and North Africa list:
- Orfali Bros Bistro (Dubai)
- Tresind Studio (Dubai)
- Fusions by Tala (Manama, Bahrain)
- Ossiano (Dubai)
- 3 Fils (Dubai)
- George & John (Tel Aviv)
- Kinoya (Dubai)
- Fakhreldin (Amman, Jordan)
- Zooba (Cairo)
- Moonrise (Dubai)
Below, check the list of best restaurants in each country according to the ranking of the 50 best restaurants in the Middle East and North Africa in 2023:
- Orfali Bros Bistro, Dubai (1st place; Best Restaurant in UAE; Middle East and North Africa)
- Fusions by Tala, Manama (3rd place; Best Restaurant in Bahrain)
- George & John, Tel Aviv (6th place; Best Restaurant in Israel)
- Fakhreldin, Amman (8th place; Best Restaurant in Jordan)
- Zooba, Cairo (9th place; Best Restaurant in Egypt)
- Baron, Beirut (16th place; Best Restaurant in Lebanon)
- Myazu, Riyadh (18th place; Best Restaurant in Saudi Arabia)
- La Grand Table Marocaine (27th place, Best Restaurant in Morocco)
- La Closerie, Tunis (34th place; Best Restaurant in Tunisia)
- White Robata, Kuwait (42nd; Best Restaurant in Kuwait)
Dubai in the spotlight
Of the 50 best restaurants in the region, 15 are in Dubai, with four of them even appearing in the top 5.
Another city that stood out in the ranking was Amman, the capital of Jordan, with five entries. Tel Aviv, in Israel, tied and also has six restaurants on the list.
Other highlights are Cairo, Egypt, with four restaurants, and Abu Dhabi, with three restaurants.
It is also important to point out that famous houses that have several units in the Middle East entered the ranking more than once.
It is the case of coya , with two houses on the list (Dubai at 28th and Abu Dhabi at 33rd); of Sachi (Giza 22nd and Cairo 30th); of LPM (Dubai 21st to Riyadh at 38th); and Zuma (Dubai in 13th and Abu Dhabi in 43rd).
side prizes
The award also awarded other prizes to houses and chefs involved in the sector, such as Best Female Chef award given to Salam Dakkak chef and owner of the restaurant Bait Maryam, in Dubai.
Karim Bourgi was elected the Best Pastry Chef 2023 and Mustafa Elrefaey from Zooba restaurant, in Cairo, won the Chefs’ Choice Award, in which his professional colleagues pay homage to a chef who has made a positive contribution to the region’s gastronomy in the last year.
already the icon award was delivered to chef Anissa Helou which has several books published on Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and North African cuisine.
Who stood out in the category of sustainability it was the restaurant OCD in Tel Aviv, where the chef Raz Rahav serves modern Israeli cuisine through 16 to 20 dishes that creatively utilize commonly discarded or forgotten produce.
THE hospitality award went to Em Sherif a well-known restaurant in Beirut, Lebanon, which also reached 20th place in the general list.
Lastly, theOne To Watch “, a category that recognizes a restaurant on the rise and that has the potential to be included in the list in the coming years, went to oops gives chef Shirel Berger in Tel Aviv.
ranking and voting
The Middle East & North Africa’s 50 Best Restaurants, abbreviated as MENA 50 Best Restaurants, is the regional arm of the now traditional 50 Best awards, which elect the 50 best restaurants in the world and maintain parallel rankings, such as Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants, in Latin America.
Started in 2022, the MENA 50 Best Restaurants is “a celebration of the best places to eat” spanning 19 countries across the Middle East and North Africa region.
The list is based on the votes of 250 industry experts from the region, who are food writers and critics, chefs, restaurateurs and well-known “foodies”.
For the 2023 list, each member voted for seven restaurants, with at least two establishments located outside the country where they are based.
The ceremony took place at the luxurious Conrad Abu Dhabi Etihad Towers hotel, in Abu Dhabi, but the agenda started from January 27th, when dinners and gastronomic meetings took over the events.
Source: CNN Brasil
Johanna Foster is an expert opinion writer with over 7 years of experience. She has a reputation for delivering insightful and thought-provoking articles on a variety of subjects. Her work can be found on some of the top online news websites, and she is currently lending her voice to the world stock market.
