Dubai’s Orfali Bros listed in World’s Best 50

The respected World's 50 Best organization has recognized Orfali Bros Bistro in Dubai as the top restaurant in the Middle East and North Africa. The restaurant is located in Dubai. Three brothers from Syria established this local eatery, which now holds the number one spot in the MENA rankings.

The rankings for the area have been issued by the organization for the second year in a row. Again, the emirate dominated the list, taking 15 of the top slots, followed by Tel Aviv with six and Amman, Jordan, with five.

Orfali Bros Chef Mohammad Orfali thanked the voters at the event that took place in Abu Dhabi by saying that the restaurant was not founded with the intention of being number one. "Just for fun, we decided to unlock it."

The culinary scene in the UAE is now on a roll. Once thought of as a location where chefs would just copy and paste popular ideas from other places, the emirate's native innovations are finding success and investors who are willing to support them. Last year, the city's tourist office sponsored its first Michelin star awards and produced a gastronomy report, both of which boasted about the city's 13,000 restaurants and other food and beverage establishments.

The awards of being one of the area 50 Best are yet another method for cooks to acquire exposure. The restaurants that make it into the lists of the 50 Best are often more innovative than the restaurants that obtain Michelin stars, and there is not a lot of overlap between the two categories of restaurants.

The list features a significant number of non-Arabic and Asian restaurants on it, which is something many chefs have mentioned as something they would want to see changed. Omar, Mohammed, and Wassim Orfali are the brothers behind Orfali Bros. They are originally from Aleppo, Syria, although they are hesitant to describe their cuisine as belonging to any single category.

Following the event, Mohammed Orfali was quoted as saying, "We symbolize the new Dubai cuisine." Orfali Bros, much like other excellent restaurants in the UAE, does not have a license to sell alcoholic beverages. Orfali said that the famed restaurant Noma in Copenhagen served as a source of motivation for him while developing a juice match.