Is Saudi Arabia ready to take the Middle East's F&B crown from Dubai?
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While the likes of Riyadh and Jeddah have long lagged behind Dubai in terms of quantity and quality of restaurants, that could be about to change. Saudi’s Vision 2030 campaign aims to make the country a thriving and vibrant modern society, with a number of initiatives underway to achieve that.
The launch of Saudi Seasons cultural events have been used as a springboard for many familiar brands to make moves into the Kingdom. La Petite Maison, Gaia, and Scalini are all household names in Dubai that have held pop-ups in Riyadh or Jeddah over the past 12 months.
La Petite Maison global operations director Nicolas Budzynski tells us he was surprised at how many people already knew the brand in the country, saying: “We knew LPM had many fans in Saudi Arabia, but we could not have imagined how big the following was until we opened our pop-up restaurant. On average, the pop-up has had 220-250 covers a night in a 70 cover restaurant and 99% of the guests are already very familiar with LPM. Guests will come in and order without even looking at the menu.”
The French Mediterranean restaurant has plans to open a permanent location in Riyadh in 2020, and is far from the only brand to do so. Bulldozer Group founder Evgeny Kuzin told Caterer Middle East last year that it plans to move all of its concepts to the Kingdom, while Sunset Hospitality is in the middle of taking Black Tap and Luigia over.
The growth of the F&B scene naturally means more competition for the brands already established in Saudi, including Japanese concept Okku which moved from Dubai to Riyadh at the end of 2018.
