This year’s Middle East and North Africa’s 50 Best Restaurants, sponsored by S.Pellegrino and Acqua Panna, have been unveiled at a ceremony in Abu Dhabi, with Orfali Bros Bistro topping the list for the third consecutive year.
The Dubai restaurant, run by three brothers from Aleppo, serves a playful and inventive cuisine drawing on Syrian and global influences. The restaurant’s lack of pretension has won fans both locally and internationally, and again it tops the MENA’s 50 Best Restaurants list, one dominated as usual by the emirate, with Khufu’s in Cairo the only restaurant in the top five outside of Dubai.
Several additional awards were given out on the night, including the Chef’s Choice Award, which went to Tala Bashmi, who recently stepped away from her restaurant Fusions by Tala in Manama, Bahrain (number six on this year’s list). The Icon Award went to Omar Shibab, founder of Dubai’s Boca, which won the Sustainable Restaurant Award, while Carmen Rueda Hernández of Dubai’s Brix was named Best Pastry Chef.
More were announced ahead of the ceremony: Yasmina Hayek, the Lebanese Executive Chef and Culinary Creative Director of the Em Sherif Group, which has 12 locations across the Middle East and now one in the UK, at Harrods in London, was named Best Female Chef; Table 3 in Casablanca, described as “redefining Moroccan fine dining with global flair” was named as the One to Watch for 2025; and Ossiano, in Dubai, received the Art of Hospitality Award.
See the full list of MENA’s 50 Best Restaurants 2025, below.
1. Orfali Bros, Dubai
2. Tresind Studio, Dubai
3. Kinoya, Dubai
4. Khufu’s, Cairo
5. Ossiano, Dubai
6. Fusions by Tala, Manama
7. Jun’s, Dubai
8. Shams El Balad, Amman
9. Em Sherif, Beirut
10. Moonrise, Dubai
11. Fakhreldin, Amman
12. Boca, Dubai
13. Alee, Amman
14. 3 Fils, Dubai
15. Bait Maryam, Dubai
16. Marble, Riyadh
17. Row on 45, Dubai *Highest climber
18. Dara Dining by Sara Aquel, Amman *Highest new entry
19. Zuma, Dubai
20. Sufra, Amman
21. Zooba (Zamalek), Cairo
22. La Grand Table Marocaine, Marrakech
23. LPM, Dubai
24. Kazoku, Cairo
25. Gaia, Dubai
26. 21 Grams, Dubai
27. Sachi, Cairo
28. 11 Woodfire, Dubai
29. Marmellata Bakery, Abu Dhabi
30. Kuuru, Jeddah
31. Lunch Room, Riyadh
32. Sesamo, Marrakech
33. Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, Dubai
34. Izakaya, Cairo
35. +61, Marrakech
36. 13C Bar in the Back, Amman
37. Mimi Kakushi, Dubai
38. LPM, Abu Dhabi
39. Aseeb, Riyadh
40. Sachi Giza, Giza
41. TakaHisa, Dubai
42. Baron, Beirut
43. Cut by Wolfgang Puck, Manama
44. Le Golfe, La Marsa
45. Smoked Room, Dubai
46. Le Petit Cornichon, Marrakech
47. Reif Kushiyaki, Cairo
48. La Grande Brasserie by Hélène Darroze, Marrakech
49. Myazu, Riyadh
50. Niri, Abu Dhabi