If your camera roll is 50 per cent tasting menus and you can recite half of Dubai’s wine lists from memory, clear your diary for the third weekend of November. Gault&Millau UAE’s Culinary Innovators is back for its second edition, and this time it is turning The Avery at Conrad Dubai into a two-day mash-up of some of the city’s most talked-about kitchens.
The pop-up, taking place on November 21 and November 22, will host three dining experiences over the weekend, with one dinner on Friday and both a lunch and a dinner on Saturday, each limited to 150 guests.
Last year, Culinary Innovators invited individual chefs to create their own one-off tasting dishes. For 2025, the format has changed slightly. Rather than 12 standalone plates, the chefs have been paired up into six collaborating kitchens, each responsible for an appetiser-sized hero dish that highlights local produce and flavours. The combinations are a dream for foodies in the UAE. For instance, TakaHisa is joining forces with Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, Row on 45 is teaming up with Pierre’s TT, Jun’s linking with Goldfish Sushi & Yakitori, and Al Muntaha working alongside Moonrise, with Maison Dali × Krasota and BRIX Journey × SNA’AP rounding out the roster.
Tickets are tiered, depending on how you like to eat (or drink) your way through a menu. There is a Selected Soft package built around curated alcohol-free serves, a Wine-Pairing option with glasses matched to each course alongside other alcoholic choices, and a Champagne package that features Perrier-Jouët Grand Brut with additional pairings for those who want to make a night of it.
For anyone who likes to lock in the best seats, there is also a VIP reserved option, limited to eight tables of four per event, with early access, a welcome round of curated canapés and an extra bite from each of the six kitchens. Those tables come with dedicated service, premium champagne, access to wine pairings and a full selection of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks.
Tickets for all three seatings are on sale now here.