Paying for dinner at a stranger's house

A dinner at chef Haya Bishouty's house

Dubai, UAE has so many restaurants that if you chose a different one to eat at every day, it would take you nearly 50 years to explore them all. With so many cuisines to choose from around the world, eating dinner at home can sometimes seem a bit strange in this city.

But many people in Dubai are paying to eat at home, not their own, but someone else’s. Diners will pay more than $80 to have complete strangers cook for them at “summer clubs.”

A supper club is a set dinner prepared by professional chefs. Diners usually do not know the menu or location of the dinner in advance. People are encouraged to go alone or with just a few friends, which gives them the opportunity to socialize and allows them to bring their own drinks.

It's not a new idea, but in Dubai it's reached new heights with dozens of new experiences over the past year.

“I want to bring people under one roof, sit at one table, let them talk without distance, and simply have dinner and have fun together,” said Palestinian chef Ahmad Halawa, who founded his dinner club in 2019.

At first, it was just friends and family coming. But as word of Halawa's delicious food began to spread, strangers started coming to the house and making reservations to join in the experience.

People mostly hear about Halawa through word of mouth or Instagram, and dinners are usually booked two days in advance. Now he hosts up to 30 guests a week for two dinners in his backyard, which is set into an elegant banquet table, with flowers and dim lighting.

These strangers pay more than $100 each to partake in his innovative Levantine menu, which includes the famous knafeh, a traditional Arabic dessert made with puff pastry and soft, sweet cheese.

While good food is key to any dinner party, Halawa suspects that the social aspect of supper clubs is driving their appeal in Dubai, where about 90% of the population is expatriates, away from home and family, and his dinners are served family-style at a communal table rather than individually as in a restaurant.

Dragan Susa, a creative at Emirates Flight Catering, started hosting supper clubs in 2021. Susa’s eight-course menu, priced at $110 per person, showcases dishes from his childhood in Croatia, Serbia and Greece combined with Balkan and Greek styles with seasonal ingredients available in Dubai.

A dinner at Dragan Susa's house

Like Halawa, he believes that finding community is one of the reasons customers want to experience this type of menu.

“Dubai is a fast-paced city, people come and go and they stay here for a year or two,” says Susa, adding that clubs allow you to meet people other than your current colleagues and friends.

A foodie named Dave Luis attended his first supper club, Kuv's Secret Supper Club, in July 2022, and has attended several others since.

“I love dining out, but was starting to get bored with the restaurant atmosphere in Dubai,” said the 50-year-old South African. “The idea of ​​a supper club, at a chef’s home, was something much more personal and memorable.”

For Luis, the social aspect is just as important as the menu. “It’s rare to have a night out where the magnificence of the food is matched by the sheer excitement and joy of meeting people from so many cultures, many of whom have become my friends,” he adds.

Supper clubs operate in a grey area: they are not restaurants, so they do not need a food hygiene licence, which makes them easy to set up and also means they are not regulated by traditional hygiene and safety agencies.

In a bid to standardise the industry – and grab a slice of the supper club pie – entrepreneur Kevin Vaz co-founded Splidu, an app that connects diners with unique underground dining experiences in the UAE. The app facilitates the booking, payment and legal processes, allowing chefs to focus on creativity rather than logistics.

“We have public liability insurance in conjunction with our business licence, which also protects the customers, protects the chefs as well as any other stakeholders,” says Vaz.

Vaz says Splidu is one of the first platforms to focus entirely on offline dining, and he hopes to carve out a niche for the food and beverage industry in the same way delivery services have evolved.

According to data from Splidu, more than 4,000 diners booked experiences on the platform in the first half of 2024, with an average of 41 experiences offered each month.

TB (according to Vietnam+)

Source: https://baohaiduong.vn/trai-nghiem-doc-dao-o-dubai-tra-tien-de-duoc-an-toi-tai-nha-nguoi-la-389885.html