6 Ways To Elevate Your Restaurant Menu

The Middle East is home to one of the most thriving and exciting culinary scenes in the world.

Therefore, to stand out in such a competitive market, your venue needs to offer something special and unique.

Below, we share our top tips for how you can elevate and differentiate your venue and restaurant menus to stay well ahead of the competition.

Incorporate amazing gourmet ingredients

According to Statista, the data platform, the Middle East is home to more than three million food outlets. Dubai alone has around 13,000 restaurants, cafes and bars, and the city was declared the world’s fourth-best destination for food lovers in TripAdvisor’s 2022 Travellers’ Choice Awards.

So, to ensure your dishes stand out from all the thousands of others offered across the region, we suggest you explore our new and exciting products offered in our catalogues.

We are proud to provide restaurant owners and chefs with an unparalleled one-stop-solution for high-quality artisan food and beverage products. By bringing the world’s finest gourmet brands to the Middle East, we are helping diversify and empower the region’s restaurant and hotel industries. Our teams provide chefs and restaurant owners with the products, ingredients, and inspiration they need to create outstanding restaurant menus and concepts that stand out from the crowd.

Spanning everything from ethically raised meat and poultry, fresh seafood, Asian spices, authentic Italian pastas, European cheeses, golden pastries and much more, our exceptional ingredients are sure to elevate your dishes and enrapture your guests.

We are proud to be the exclusive supplier in the Middle East for many gourmet ingredients, and we are constantly updating and developing our catalogues. Some of the latest items to be added include our rich and indulgent L’Grow beef range, our succulent Cadoret Oysters, and our IGP-certified Garofalo pasta, which is crafted from the finest semolina sourced from Italy, Australia, and Arizona. Our sumptuous fillings and toppings from IRCA are sure to make your desserts an experience to remember, while our range of sauces from Chef’s Palette completes every dish.

Our Certified Angus Beef range features the juiciest, tastiest and most tender cuts of beef in the region, and is favoured by numerous top chefs and fine-dining restaurant owners throughout the globe. Meanwhile, our Valrhona chocolate range is ideal for creating decadent desserts that your guests will adore, and our premium range of classic Fentimans lemonades, colas and other botanical-infused artisan soft drinks is bound to add an extra element of sophistication and class to your beverage selections.

Furthermore, our authentically Italian all-purpose Molini Pizzuti flour should be an essential staple of every gourmet restaurant’s kitchen. Complementing our extensive collection of authentic Italian cheeses, tasty sauces, juicy meats and organic olive oil, our Molini Pizzuti Pulcinella Soft Wheat Pizza Flour is ideal for making light and easily digestible pizzas, while the Molini Pizzuti Costa D’Amalfi Pizza Flour is a priceless tool for pizza makers who are looking for a medium to long-rising dough.

Offer unmissable deals and themed menus

LTOs (limited time offers) and themed activations are a proven way of enticing guests into your restaurant.

Providing guests with the chance to be part of something new, exciting and totally unique, LTOs can make the difference between a slow period and a period that achieves record-breaking revenues.

Alongside creating special menus for occasions such as Christmas, Easter and Ramadan, you can also offer regular deals and offers. For instance, offering a great-value Business Lunch menu can assist with attracting footfall during the quieter daytime hours when many are at work or school, while Happy Hours and offering cut priced drinks during the early evening is another great way of filling up the period before guests start arriving for dinner. Doing free giveaways such as free coffees for International Coffee Day is also a good idea. Once you get customers through the door, they’ll surely be tempted to purchase a snack or sweet treat to go with their coffee, and they’ll remember your generosity and feel compelled to return.

You can really think outside the box and get creative with your LTO ideas! For example, we loved Bijou Patisserie’s 2023 Valentine’s gift promotion. The venue’s expert pastry chefs used our luxury range of Valrhona Italian chocolates to create beautiful romantic chocolates and treats, and packaged them inside a custom-made, handbag-shaped box. The finished experience delivered to guests was one they would never forget!

Remember, the most effective LTO strategies are the ones that adapt to the trends of the ever-changing foodservice industry, and your local audience.

Update your restaurant menu regularly

Updating your restaurant menu regularly is one of the best ways of keeping things fresh and interesting.

When you have the Chef Middle East catalogues at your fingertips, you are free to experiment, think creatively and incorporate hundreds of unique artisan products into your recipes. Offering multiple brands that can be found nowhere in the Middle East, alongside premium quality products sourced from every corner of the globe, we have all your need to create new and exciting menus that your guests will adore. We also work with our own industry consultants – Chefs Amine Hmani, Georges Chihane and Tauland Hyka. These experienced professionals are always on hand to provide you with inspiration and insightful ways that you can make your menu even more outstanding.

To keep your menu relevant, encourage your whole team to contribute ideas. You can also test new menu items before they launch by providing limited time offers, or by treating your regulars to free samples.

Create the perfect team

It’s no use having an incredible restaurant menu if you don’t have an equally incredible team to showcase it.
Having an efficient, professional, quick, and friendly front of house team will help you gather returning customers and glowing reviews, while a skilled, talented, and creative back-of-house team is the backbone of every restaurant.

Along with making sure you hire the right people and train them up thoroughly, there are various ways that you can ensure your team love their jobs, look forward to coming to work, and are able to prepare and present your dishes perfectly every time.

Make sure all the serving staff have a detailed knowledge of every dish on the menu, and give them a chance to sample at least a bite of every dish themselves.

Host masterclasses

Another effective way of making your venue a success is by hosting cooking masterclasses. These interactive sessions invite your chefs to demonstrate how every recipe is prepared and allow your guests to have a go at making them themselves. This will help your diners thoroughly understand the extraordinary nature of your menu and gain a new appreciation for your team’s skills and knowledge.

Try out new trends

Trying out restaurant menu trends keeps your venue relevant, fashionable, and cutting-edge. It also encourages your guests to promote you on TikTok or other social media platforms. According to the MICHELIN Guide, the world-renowned series of food guidebooks and rankings, the key trends for 2023 include back-to-basics cooking and classic recipes, sustainable specialties and techniques, and cross-cultural collaborations with visiting chefs and restaurants from overseas. Plant-based, vegan, and healthy restaurant menu items are also continuing to be popular and top-trending.

At Chef Middle East, our teams pride themselves on always staying ahead of global trends and industry foresights. We ensure that you incorporate only the most enticing and effective ideas and ingredients into your menus.

For more restaurant menu inspiration and more tips about how to make your dining experience stand out from the competition, please contact Chef Middle East’s expert team on info@chefmiddleeast.com.