Top 5 Amazing Restaurant Trends Of 2024 in UAE

UAE, a country that is known for its modernity and innovation, is now experiencing a revolution - a revolution in restaurants that goes beyond just fulfilling culinary needs. In this article, we explore the restaurant trends 2024 that are already thriving in the UAE.

Why Restaurants in UAE Should Adopt Innovative Trends?

There are several reasons why adopting innovative trends is crucial for running a restaurant in the UAE. For one, keeping up with the trends allows you to create a dining experience that is fresh and exciting for your customers in the UAE.

Plus, embracing these innovative trends also leads to efficiency, cost-effectiveness as well as sustainability, which are all factors in the long-term success of restaurants in the UAE. Finally, customers residing in the UAE are then interested in food joints that introduce the dining experience based on their preferences, dietary trends, and also offer convenience through technology integration in UAE restaurants.

Keeping all of this in mind, let’s move on to explore some of the latest restaurant trends of 2024 in the UAE:

Tech-Forward Dining Experiences

Technology integration in UAE restaurants have been witnessed as a game-changer to help the business scale like never before:

Digital Menu Platforms Transforming Ordering

Digital menus are exactly what it sounds like: they are presented in a digital format, instead of traditional printed menus! They can be accessed through electronic devices such as your smartphone, tablets, kiosks, etc.

To access the digital menu, your customers are provided with a QR code that is linked to the menu of your restaurant. The digital menu is designed to be user-friendly with robust functionality to allow your customers to browse the menu, place their order, and track progress effortlessly.

One way customers in UAE can do that is by accessing Fougito to list the restaurants near them, browse their menu, place their online orders and then finally make the payment - all carried out digitally!

Contactless Dining Innovations

QR code menus are thriving in the UAE: Basta, Hayal, The Library, etc. are some of the major dining establishments in Dubai that have embraced QR code menus to offer a contactless dining experience to their customers.

This basically started when COVID was rampant, and even years after the pandemic, this contactless dining innovation is still flourishing in the UAE! In this case, QR code menus have been a total gamechanger: you can access the digital menu multiple times without having to continuously ask for its printed copy.

Apart from the digital menu, restaurants in the UAE also offer the option of making contactless payments: simply sign the QR code from your smartphone and pay for your order seamlessly!

Virtual Experiences and Augmented Reality

The day is not far when restaurants will be able to provide augmented reality experiences to its customers. In fact, that day may already be here in the UAE.

McDonald’s in the UAE introduced its augmented reality ads to its campaign. This allows users to interact using their phone cameras. There is an image of a burger on screen, and users could have a bite, virtually. As users eat up the burger, as seen from the camera, the burger disappears. This showed a 3.7% lift in ad recall with the AR ads done by McDonald’s!

Believe it or not, such an immersive technology does exist and will soon be available in every restaurant in the UAE!

Sustainable Dining in UAE

We shouldn’t ignore the plenty of restaurants around the UAE who are fully committed towards sustainable dining practices. Such establishments that prioritise the community as well as the planet in every step of their operations.

Embracing Locally Sourced Ingredients

The purchase of locally sourced ingredients means that less energy is being consumed in the transportation of these items by plane, truck, or shop that leave carbon footprints. Besides that, it also supports local farmers in their businesses.

Lowe is one such restaurant in Dubai that prides itself in being as sustainable as possible by using local ingredients in its menu and introducing its own kitchen garden. Also every once in a while, Lowe hosts a series of “Waste Not” dinners that serve up to eight to ten courses of leftover ingredients that would otherwise go to waste.

Such an initiative is essential for reducing food loss as well as the impact on climate change.

Eco-Friendly Packaging Solutions

Another way that businesses in Dubai are using to introduce sustainability is by introducing eco-friendly packaging solutions.

There is Al Bustan Co Packing LLC that is dedicated towards supplying eco-friendly packaging options to companies in Dubai and all over the UAE. They offer a wide range of eco-friendly food packaging solutions i.e. biodegradable, compostable, and recyclable materials.

The material contained in these eco-friendly packaging solutions can be easily broken into simpler substances, thus they don’t create a lasting waste. Recyclable wastes, as the term suggests, can be recycled in one way or the other.

Green Practices for Reduced Environmental Impact

Other green practices for reducing environmental impact include bringing high-efficiency equipment in the restaurant kitchen, installing LED light bulbs, placing induction cookers to lower the level of pollutants, setting up smart thermostats to reduce energy waste - all of these steps will help to save both money and energy for restaurants in the UAE.

Fougito, as mentioned above, is a mobile POS technology that allows you access to a whole list of restaurants in Dubai, encourages you to make payment online, shares receipt - all of which is possible digitally to reduce the environmental impact!

Evolution of Dining Atmospheres

In the UAE, a restaurant isn’t some place where customers come just to eat, rather they are there for the whole immersive experience.

Interactive and Immersive Dining Environments

The popular Le Petit Chef, a digital French chef 6 centimetres tall that provides a mesmerising immersive dining experience can be spotted at Andaz Dubai. Along with indulging in a 5-course set menu, customers can enjoy an enchanting 3D live show. This show includes a stunning scene ranging from gorgeous colour settings through which you can spot the little chef fishing for lobsters and preparing other ingredients.

The purpose behind such an interactive and immersive dining experience is to engage the customers with visuals, music, and a little participation on their part.

Pop-Up and Collaborative Dining Events

If you don’t already know, a foodie pop-up is an event designed to let foodies and cooks showcase their culinary talents for other customers to try! And plenty of these happen in the UAE every once in a while.

For instance, there is a two-night culinary event being hosted at The Beach House by Anantara The Palm Dubai Resort which will feature a young Russian chef Evgeny Vikentev. Vikentev is going to introduce a five-course menu that brings the taste of Russia to Dubai. This event is set to take place on March 23 and 24.

Other events include the Dubai Food Festival that takes place over the course of 17 days featuring line-up of events and experiences to celebrate culinary offerings by the city’s top 50 restaurants.

Personalised and Customised Dining Spaces

There are some restaurants in UAE that are striving to create captivating spaces that offer customised features for the customers.

A fine-dining Japanese restaurant in Dubai, CLAP, offers an immersive dining experience by letting customers spend time in their open-air terrace with a stunning view of the city’’s skyline and the open kitchen where they can spot the chefs showcasing their cooking art. For those costumes who are looking to host a wide range of events, they can take advantage of CLAP by customising the space according to their preferences!

Summing It Up

The restaurant trends of 2024 showcase a dynamic and evolving relationship between customers, and restaurants, where the latter is using multiple elements including technology, sustainability, and customisation to provide exciting dining experiences.

All in all, the commitment of restaurants in UAE reflect the restaurant owners’ commitment towards innovation, diversity, and a blend of tradition and modernity that customers clearly enjoy! As you start your journey of running a restaurant in UAE, you should be prepared to not only introduce exquisite flavour but also to provide an immersive experience to your customer through your dining service!