“JUBILEE GASTRONOMY WAS BORN OUT OF OUR VISION TO CREATE A PIONEERING CULINARY BRAND THAT UAE, AND THE WORLD, HAD NEVER SEEN BEFORE” Naim Maadad, Chief Executive & Founder of Gates Hospitality takes us on a journey from past to present. Here, Maadad discusses the brand’s remarkable concepts at EXPO 2020 Dubai What is your personal story/ background? Born into a family who were into the pub and restaurant business in Adelaide, Southern Australia, helped drive my passion for the industry at a very young age. It was never my mother’s wish for me to pursue a career in hospitality due to the long, hard hours associated with the business and she made this very clear when I dropped out of my economics degree at Flinders University, in favour of a hotel management course at Le Cordon Bleu. However, I knew what I wanted then, and have never looked back. While studying, I took my first role outside my family business, on Hayman Island at the Hayman Island Resort. My first venture into international hotel companies came when I joined Hilton Worldwide’s Conrad Jupiters in Queensland (now Jupiters Hotel & Casino), where after five years’ hard graft, I was promoted to the position of F&B Operations Manager. My international
career began shortly thereafter in Japan at the Yokohama Bay Sheraton Hotel & Towers, where I started out as F&B Director and was overwhelmed by differences in the language, food and lifestyle. However, once I became acclimatised, I found that my management style was a good cultural fit in Japan. My next career destination was Dubai – where I was the opening outlets and beverage manager for Jumeirah Group’s Burj Al Arab. Following 12 months with Jumeirah Group, I moved back to Hilton Worldwide to open the JBR property in Dubai as Deputy General Manager – a role I would hold till my next Hilton Appointments in Jeddah (KSA) and Tokyo (Japan), where I reported directly to the Vice President of operations, managing an 806-room hotel with 1 million F&B covers per year. My next assignment took me to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia wherein the Saudi Royal Family head-hunted me to manage a
220-key private villa compound. My big break into the development side of hotels and my first foray into the SPA industry came just after that when I joined Six Senses Hotels Resorts & Spas to open the group’s Oman and Jordan properties, before being promoted to Managing Director for the Middle East region. Thai Hotel Brand was the next stop, at Minor International’s Anantara Hotels & Resorts, where I managed the company’s global spa portfolio and its Middle Eastern hotels. I returned to Dubai joining the Turkish Group Rixos Hotels & Resorts as the COO of Spas and Vice President of Development. Following decades of building spa and F&B concepts from the ground up, managing operations, negotiating with owners and representing deluxe brands, I decided to put my skills to the test with my own company Gates Hospitality in 2010, which was born in Dubai with the vision of engaging, belonging, innovating and enriching hospitality experiences like nothing that had existed in the region before. 12 years later, this exciting journey continues with passion and zeal which has grown from strength to strength each passing moment.
Gates Hospitality has been the talk of the town when it comes to culinary offerings at EXPO 2020. Talk us through the concept. Jubilee Gastronomy was born out of our vision to create a pioneering culinary brand that UAE, and the world, had never seen before. It was important for us to create a brand that’s a trendsetter and iconic in nature. It was an effort to bring the best of the best of culinary chefs from around the globe and hold chef’s table events for the entire duration of six months at Expo 2020. 31 of the world’s best Michelin Star and 50 Best Chefs were to be seen and experienced at one venue for the first time in culinary history of the world food scene.
Describe in detail the EXPO initiatives. Our main objective was to bring sensational culinary experiences from around the world to the most awaited event which is Expo 2020. We launched six global brands at this iconic event, namely Jubilee, Kutir, Baron, The National, Scarpetta and ADRIFT Burger Bar. Jubilee Gastronomy is dining redefined at Expo 2020 Dubai as it presents a schedule of
