ADNH launches restaurants unit

Abu Dhabi National Hotels (ADNH) has launched a new restaurant division to “lure” new F&B brands to the city, a senior company official has said. The new division will operate eight restaurants at the upcoming Venetian Village in Abu Dhabi, part of the Ritz-Carlton Abu Dhabi Grand Canal site being developed by ADNH. ADNH CEO Richard Riley said in comments published by Hotelier Middle East: “We’re looking at master franchise agreements and developing our own stable that we can then generate; we have many locations where we can work with branded restaurants. “Some of these will probably be master franchises, some of them we’re encouraging to come to the UAE for the first time. I‘d like to try and get as many new entities as possible,” said Riley. Riley said that it was important for Abu Dhabi to offer more globally recognised food and beverage brands as part of its wider tourism strategy. “Clearly, Abu Dhabi is growing and Dubai has done a remarkable job and look at all the opportunities as residents that we have here [in Dubai], those need to be created in Abu Dhabi. “We’re already a large presence in Abu Dhabi so we owe it to the city to make this happen and we’ll do so,” added Riley.The Ritz-Carlton Abu Dhabi, an AED1.5 billion investment for ADNH with six restaurants, is due to open by the end of 2011, said Riley. “I will be pushing very hard to get it open before the end of the year, that’s what we’re doing, I’m not going to nail it down but the bottom line is we feel we’re very, very close and we just hope if everything will stay on schedule that we’ll be able to pull it off.” The F&B outlets will include an Asian restaurant, steak and seafood restaurant, gelato café and a Lebanese restaurant. From / Arabian Business News