For anyone visiting Nammos Dubai – now the world’s highest grossing restaurant – they would be surprised to learn that the man behind it – Petros Stathis – had never run a restaurant before.
But that doesn’t mean he is a newcomer. While Nammos Dubai might be his first restaurant, Stathis has spent the last 20 years as the commercial force behind a string of brands that are now metaphors for high-end hospitality around the world.
Petros Stathis’ two-decade journey to the apex of the leisure business actually began with a loss. He was working on the unsuccessful 1996 Olympic bid for his hometown, Athens. While the Greek capital had to wait until 2004 to finally host the Games, when the day came, Stathis was ready. The construction-boom unleashed by the Olympics gave Stathis his first significant business career: property. His success in the sector gave him the resources and opportunity to then buy the AEK Athens football club – one of the traditional giants of Greek sports.
Top-flight football was then, as it is now, a great leveller. Bringing together people from all walks of life and from all professions, creating an amphitheatre of opportunity – a souk for entrepreneurs. Petros soon learned he could leverage his commercial property expertise with the then emerging high-end leisure sector. Although at the time it was only a handful of largely unconnected discreet brands, it was clear to Petros this was a space that would grow rapidly. He was right.
Before long, he moved into hospitality, first in his home country, and then beyond its borders along the Adriatic coast. Joining with Adrian Zecha, founder of the Aman brand, they opened the Aman Hotel in Montenegro’s glamorous island of Sveti Stefan. This was followed by the Aman Venice which became the haunt of A-Listers and memorably hosted the wedding of Amal and George Clooney.
Petros is now based in the UAE and prominent amongst his stable of thoroughbred leisure brands is Nammos Dubai. In 2022 within three-years of opening, this restaurant became the highest earning dining experience in the world, validating once more his commercial acumen.
Having recently become an Emirati citizen, Petros Stathis plans to stay in the Emirates for the long term so he can continue to sprinkle Dubai with his hospitality magic.
Speaking about how he came to open Nammos Dubai, Petros says: “Well, I had just moved to Dubai. Now you cannot be in business internationally without a foothold in Dubai. The Emirate is attracting international businessmen as London and Hong Kong used to. The capital flows are here. The entrepreneurs are here. The opportunities are here.
I’m a serial entrepreneur by nature. I knew that I would open some sort of business in Dubai. I just wasn’t sure what. Originally, I thought about opening an Aman Hotel and Resort, as we had already launched two, with another two under construction. But I wanted to try something new and I had never established a restaurant before. The timing felt right and Nammos Dubai was born”.
Whilst Nammos Dubai was Petros’s first restaurant venture, and within just a few years it had become the highest grossing restaurant in the world, it got off to a bit of a bumpy start.
According to Petros, “We opened our doors just before Christmas 2019. Things started off really well but then, as you know, the Covid pandemic struck just a couple of months later. There’s arguably never been a worse time to open a hospitality business in modern history. But we were well prepared and somehow managed to ride out the lockdown.
Importantly, the Emirati authorities were very efficient in their response to Covid. Life got back to normal much quicker than many other places. This helped us get moving again. By the end of 2022 we had managed to overtake Cipriani’s in New York and Nobu in Malibu as the top grossing restaurant globally. It makes me very proud”.
Regarding his decision to bring the Nammos brand to Dubai specifically, he reflects:
“Being Greek I had spent a lot of time in Mykonos over the years. And as I’m sure you know, it’s one of the most glamorous holiday destinations in all of Europe. Some of the things that Dubai has in common with Mykonos is sun, sea, and an appetite for luxury, so I had a feeling that a Nammos offspring would be well-received here. The city was also lacking in luxury Mediterranean dining options. Nammos fuses the two and I thought would plug a gap in the market. Fortunately, I guessed right”.
Since launching Nammos Dubai, Ce La Vie, the world famous rooftop bar from Singapore, another brand which Petros Stathis has been working with, arrived in the UAE as well.
Famous for its offering of rooftop bars that allow guests to dine on the finest Asian fusion cuisine while enjoying sweeping panoramic views of a surrounding city, it first launched in Singapore, before expanding to Taipei and Tokyo, and then, Dubai. The Ce La Vie aesthetic is inspired by the artistic heritage of South-East Asia. It’s a real recipe for elegance and it has been very well received so far in the Emirates.
Looking back on his operations in the Emirates for over four years already, Petros shares his take on the local market.
“People here are after quality. That is something that is synonymous with luxury brands. They’re very demanding and are used to the finer things in life. That means you have to offer the very best if you want to succeed. But my team is used to doing just that. The Dubai hospitality scene is now up there with the best in the world, but you cannot stand still; there is still further to go and I intend to be at the centre of that”.