Vineet Bhatia pushes ahead with new dining concept in Dubai

Vineet Bhatia, the first chef of Indian origin to receive a Michelin star, opened a new restaurant in Dubai last week. But with the UAE still on alert for occasional drone and missile attacks, and Dubai reeling from a drop in visitors, the timing may seem strange.

The 58-year-old celebrity chef, who is best known for his hit Netflix series The Final Table and as a judge on MasterChef India, is well aware of this.

“The war has been bad for everybody. It’s been worse than what Covid was,” he told AGBI.

“With Covid, things bounced back within six to eight weeks. Here, we don’t have tourism at all.”

Even before the Iran war started in February, Dubai was already one of the world’s most competitive restaurant markets. Authorities in 2024 were issuing an average of around 100 new restaurant licences per month, helping make the city home to the second highest number of outlets per capita after Paris.

Despite this, Bhatia is confident that his new concept, Naan & Co, which opened last week at Emirates Group Headquarters in Dubai and is his first major move into the mainstream dining space, will attract a loyal audience.

“We’ve always said there is a huge gap in the market for doing something mass market, but quality-oriented,” Bhatia said. “The easiest thing would have been to do a casual Indian restaurant serving great curry, great biryani and great kebabs. Everybody does that. But we don’t want to be like everybody else.”

Instead, Naan & Co centres its menu around bread, repositioning what is traditionally treated as a side dish as the main attraction. “Naan is the star,” said Bhatia.

The outlet also reflects a broader strategic shift towards more scalable and commercially flexible formats, at a time when restaurant operators are facing tougher trading conditions.

“We have had restaurants in the past that were quite simple and more mass in their scope. I wouldn’t say they were satisfying professionally when it comes to innovation, but for the bank balance, yes, it really helps,” he said.

“From a business point of view, it makes more sense. Fine dining is very heavy on maintenance and consistency is very key. These kinds of restaurants are more about high volume.”

Bhatia, who now lives in Dubai and opened his first restaurant in the city at Grosvenor House in 2005, said the emirate remains a more supportive environment for hospitality businesses than many other global markets.

“Dubai is a much safer haven for all of us,” he said. “The government can be very supportive. They give you the freedom to do what you want to do and, as long as you operate properly, you will always do well.”

The UAE consumer food service and restaurant market was worth close to $20 billion in 2024, according to research by Euromonitor, with the full-service restaurant market accounting for about 55 percent of that.

Naan & Co is being positioned as a pilot concept, with ambitions to expand into airports, malls and other high-footfall locations in the future.

The chef’s son Ronit Bhatia came up with the idea for Naan & Co and is on the ground for the launch. He said the aim was to create something more accessible than traditional fine dining while still pushing the boundaries of Indian cuisine.

“We wanted to do something that had a wider appeal,” he said. “A casual-chic concept that allows us to be more creative and reach a bigger audience.”

For Bhatia, there’s the added pride in showcasing Dubai to the world.

“Twenty years ago, Dubai needed chefs to come from London to create concepts,” he said. “Today, the city is producing its own homegrown brands. That is something to be proud of.”

Further reading:

• UAE hotels get a glow up as regional conflict hits tourism
• Iran war forces UAE restaurants to rely on home deliveries
• Dubai restaurants push for rent relief but landlords hold firm