This local favorite anchors a corner in Dubai’s buzzing food-centric Wasl 51 development in beachside Jumeira 1. Inside the light and airy space, a much-talked-about two-story kitchen sends out delectable riffs on pan-Middle Eastern cuisine, like Arabic sausage gyoza and umami éclairs. The mashup cooking reflects the brothers’ immigrant background, with flavors they grew up with in Syria and those they’ve come to love as adults.
Meza Malonga Musanze, Kigali, Rwanda
Rwanda’s rapidly modernizing capital backdrops chef Dieuveil Malonga’s upscale Meza Malonga, which champions local ingredients from cassava leaves to sorghum grown on the restaurant’s three-acre farm. In 2024, the Congo-born, Germany-raised chef plans to open a “restaurant within a restaurant” called Meza Malonga Musanze on-site. The “culinary innovation village,” as he calls it, will serve as a food lab, an experimental farm, and a dining stop focused on training a new generation of African chefs. “My goal is to promote the continent’s outstanding chefs and show people the diversity of cultural influences and unique ingredients in what they’re cooking,” Malonga says. “This is an important time for African gastronomy.”
Cole Street Guesthouse, Freetown, Sierra Leone
