Icon Arabia aims for five F&B launches in the Middle East by 2017.
The "Wild West" is coming to Dubai next month with the opening of the first food and beverage (F&B) concept from Icon Arabia, a joint venture between investors from the United Arab Emirates and North America.
The firm is working on raising 150 million dirhams ($40.83 million) to bring F&B concepts from North America to the Middle East over the next three years. It has 15 restaurant, lounge and club concepts in its pipeline, and the first launch scheduled for early April will be the "Wild West-style" Weslodge Saloon, located at the JW Marriot Marquis hotel.
>Icon Arabia was set up by Icon Legacy Hospitality, a Canadian hospitality and entertainment firm, and Dubai-based financial services firm Daman Investments, which was founded in 1998 by Emirati businessman Shehab Gargash.
"Weslodge is our take on a modern American saloon, it is a throwback to the Wild West when they had all these great saloons all over North America," Maher Murshed, president of Icon Legacy Hospitality, told Zawya.
"There isn't anything like this in Dubai... We have redefined [the American saloon concept], with a great food programme based on American cuisine, with our twist on it, and with a strong cocktail and mixology programme," he said.
Icon Arabia's pipeline also includes the opening of Byblos, a Mediterranean restaurant concept serving traditional food from Lebanon, Turkey, Morocco and Greece. Also located at the JW Marriot Marquis hotel, it will open in early 2016. A third concept, Farzi Café, described as a molecular gastronomy concept, will follow later this year.
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The partnership hopes to open at least five concepts by the end of 2017, but the creative process will work in both directions since the firm plans to develop new F&B concepts in Dubai which can be exported to North America.
"As we develop these concepts we will find groups of investors who will contribute to this 150 million dirham fund, allowing it to grow year on year... In a year or two we will start developing concepts from Dubai and take them abroad," Murshed explained.
Icon Legacy Hospitality operates seven outlets in Toronto, Miami, New York and Los Angeles.
Some of the other concepts planned for the Middle East market include the Toronto lounge concept F-Stop, Spanish traditional restaurant Patria, Italian urban eatery Figo, Asian-themed steakhouse Nao and multi-level club venue Storys, which is already in Toronto and Miami.
Icon Arabia's entry into the market comes as the F&B sector in the UAE continues to show continued signs of positive growth. The sector grew by 3.5 percent last year and is forecast to grow 4.2 percent to $12.6 billion this year, according to figures from business research firm Euromonitor International's latest report.
