Michelin Guide’s Dubai launch will help the emirate achieve its goal as the number one tourism destination in the world, according to Issam Kazim, the CEO of Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DCTCM).
The announcement that the Michelin Guide would launch in Dubai is another victory for the city’s culinary scene, following the news that fellow French critique brand Gault&Millau would enter the UAE market later this year.
“We’ve always highlighted that the proposition of gastronomy is one of the key propositions of the city. This is also something that a lot of the tourists and visitors to Dubai highlighted to us,” Kazim explained.
With the arrival of the Michelin Guide, DCTCM will use any Michelin stars awarded to help leverage the story of the city’s restaurants as a destination, with the guide lending “itself perfectly for that message.”
Tourism around the world has faced a severe crisis over the past two years as the Covid-19 pandemic kept people at home and unable to travel. For Dubai, however, the target has continued to be becoming the number one destination in the world, with DCTCM targeting 25 million visitors in 2025.
The Guide will help “elevate the quality” of the city’s restaurants and “make [them] consistent, because, for us, the repeat visitation is important,” Kazim said, and is one part of a multifaceted approach to increasing tourism.
“If a restaurant starts to become more and more recognised, because Michelin has highlighted to the world that it exists in Dubai, you want to make sure that every single time it’s recommended by those travellers and guests who come to Dubai … anybody who comes in after that experiences exactly the same thing that they’ve been recommended,” he added.
Five years of inspection
Michelin uses a system of anonymous inspectors to grade restaurants. All locations are graded using the same criteria: the quality of the ingredients, the mastery of cooking, the harmony of flavours, the personality of the chef through the cuisine and the consistency both over time and across the entire menu.
Gwendal Poullennec, International Director of Michelin Guide said that inspectors have been following the progress of restaurants in Dubai for five years prior to the guide’s launch this year.
As to why the guide has finally launched in the city, Poullennec said it’s “because our inspectors have been impressed, not only by the variety of the food offering, but also by the vibrancy and the dynamic. The quality of the restaurants has definitely improved as much as than the number of restaurants.”
The first selection of Michelin Guide restaurants in Dubai will launch in June 2022 in a digital format.
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