Middle Eastern cuisine statistics at a glance
Middle Eastern cuisine sits inside a much larger travel and restaurant story: it is part of the mix that helps drive dining search behavior, restaurant traffic, and premium dining interest in Dubai and the wider Gulf region. The numbers below show not just what people eat, but how cuisine choice connects with tourism, search demand, restaurant formats, and high-end recognition.
Big number: Dubai recorded 18.72 million overnight international arrivals in 2024, up 9% year on year (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024).
Fast fact: Dubai-related food and beverage online searches reached 741,500 in the first seven months of 2024, up 23.5% from the same period of 2023 (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024).
Why it matters: cuisine preference is not a side note in this market. It shows up in search shares, dining decisions, restaurant licensing, and global rankings, all of which make Middle Eastern cuisine statistics useful for anyone tracking the region’s food economy.
Table of contents
- Dubai’s cuisine and dining demand
- Middle Eastern cuisine search patterns
- Restaurant market and visitor behavior
- Benchmark table of key figures
- What the rankings say about the scene
- Broader UAE and Saudi market context
- How to read these statistics
Dubai’s cuisine and dining demand
Dubai is the clearest lens for understanding Middle Eastern cuisine statistics because the city combines tourism, local demand, and a highly visible restaurant market.
The arrival base is large enough to create steady pressure on hospitality demand. Dubai had 17.15 million international visitors in 2023 and 18.72 million overnight international arrivals in 2024 (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024). That scale matters because dining demand is being shaped by both residents and visitors, not one audience alone.
A few key signals stand out:
- Visitors from GCC and MENA accounted for 26% of Dubai arrivals in 2024 (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024).
- Western Europe accounted for 20% of arrivals.
- South Asia accounted for 17%.
- CIS and Eastern Europe accounted for 14%.
- North East and South East Asia accounted for 10%.
- The Americas accounted for 7%.
- Africa accounted for 5%.
- Australasia accounted for 2% (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024).
That mix is important because cuisine demand in Dubai is not shaped by a single cultural group. It is exposed to multiple travel corridors at once, which helps explain why search demand is broad and why cuisine-specific performance can move quickly.
Dining interest also looks strong within the city itself. Dubai’s Interest in Dining Index peaked at 100 in June 2024, was 59 in July 2023, and reached 89 in July 2024 (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024). The rise from July 2023 to July 2024 was 33% (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024).
That is a meaningful change for cuisine-focused operators because it suggests not just one-off spikes, but a sustained lift in restaurant interest.
Middle Eastern cuisine search patterns
Middle Eastern cuisine statistics are easiest to understand when they are placed beside other cuisine categories. The dataset shows that people in Dubai are not searching for food in a flat way. They are comparing cuisines, and that comparison changes over time.
Key takeaway: the most popular dining searches in Dubai are not limited to one narrow category. Indian cuisine led with 34% of all dining-related searches in the first seven months of 2024, up from 28% in the same period of 2023 (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024).
That does not mean Middle Eastern cuisine is weak. In fact, several Middle Eastern and nearby cuisine categories showed real momentum:
- Lebanese cuisine searches increased 32% year on year and rose from 31,000 in 2023 to 41,000 in 2024 (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024).
- Pan-Arab cuisine represented 22% of total searches in 2024, even though its share fell 5% year on year (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024).
- Persian cuisine searches more than doubled in 2024, rising from 7,000 in 2023 to 17,000 in 2024 (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024).
Those figures are useful because they show different layers of demand.
Lebanese cuisine looks like a stable and growing search category. Pan-Arab cuisine remains a major share of demand even with a slight decline. Persian cuisine appears to have had the sharpest acceleration among the nearby categories included in the dataset.
Search behavior also helps frame the broader cuisine mix in Dubai. Some adjacent or competing cuisines grew as well:
- Chinese cuisine searches rose 79% year on year, from 19,000 in 2023 to 34,000 in 2024.
- Italian cuisine searches increased 28% year on year, from 70,000 to 90,000, and held a 12% share of total searches in 2024.
- Thai cuisine searches increased 21% year on year, from 14,000 to 17,000.
- French cuisine searches increased from 14,000 to 19,000 (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024).
These comparisons matter because Middle Eastern cuisine does not exist in isolation. It competes in a market where dining curiosity is expanding across multiple cuisines at once.
Restaurant market and visitor behavior
Searches are only part of the story. The restaurant market tells you whether interest becomes actual dining behavior.
Dubai’s gastronomy industry had almost 1,200 new restaurant licences issued in 2024 (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024 press release). That is a strong sign that supply is still expanding in response to demand.
The resident dining pattern also looks active. Residents visited restaurants 2.5 times per week on average (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024 press release). In practical terms, that means cuisine choice is made repeatedly, not just on rare occasions.
Dining format preferences also show where the market concentrates:
- 84% of respondents visited casual and family dining restaurants, up from 78% in Wave 5 (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024 press release).
- Food trucks increased in popularity from 15% to 19% (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024 press release).
- Hygiene was cited by 50% of Dubai residents as the most important dining decision factor (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024).
- The type of cuisine was cited by 49% as the most important dining decision factor (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024 press release).
That last pair is especially important for Middle Eastern cuisine statistics. When cuisine type is nearly as important as hygiene, menu identity is not just a branding choice. It is part of the consumer’s decision framework.
The survey base was also substantial: the GAON Wave 6 survey included more than 1,100 Dubai residents, with 55% male and 45% female respondents. The age split was 55% aged 35 and under, 30% aged 35 to 44, and 15% over 45 (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024).
That matters because it shows the data reflects a broad resident sample, not a narrow niche.
Benchmark table of key figures
A quick comparison helps show how the major cuisine and market figures stack up.
| Metric | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Dubai overnight international arrivals, 2024 | 18.72 million | Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024 |
| Dubai international visitors, 2023 | 17.15 million | Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024 |
| Dubai-related F&B online searches, first 7 months of 2024 | 741,500 | Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024 |
| Year-on-year change in those searches | 23.5% | Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024 |
| Indian cuisine share of dining-related searches, 2024 | 34% | Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024 |
| Pan-Arab cuisine share of total searches, 2024 | 22% | Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024 |
| Lebanese cuisine searches, 2024 | 41,000 | Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024 |
| Persian cuisine searches, 2024 | 17,000 | Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024 |
| Casual and family dining visitation | 84% | Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024 press release |
| New restaurant licences issued in 2024 | Almost 1,200 | Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024 press release |
| Dubai MICHELIN Guide restaurants, 2024 | 106 | Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024 |
The table is useful because it puts tourist volume, digital demand, and restaurant supply in the same frame. That combination is what makes Middle Eastern cuisine such a strong category to watch: it is tied to both demand signals and industry capacity.
What the rankings say about the scene
Cuisine statistics become more interesting when they are connected to prestige and recognition. The Michelin and 50 Best results show that Dubai is not only a high-volume market; it is also a high-visibility one.
Dubai’s 2024 MICHELIN Guide featured 106 restaurants, up from 90 restaurants in 2023 (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024). Within that total, Dubai had:
- 4 two-star MICHELIN restaurants
- 15 one-star MICHELIN restaurants
- 3 green-star MICHELIN restaurants
- 18 Bib Gourmand restaurants
- 69 MICHELIN-selected restaurants (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024)
Those counts do not describe Middle Eastern cuisine alone, but they show the quality ladder around which cuisine categories compete.
The same report also highlights MENA-specific recognition:
- Orfali Bros Bistro ranked #1 in the MENA 50 Best Restaurants 2024 list (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024).
- Trčsind Studio ranked #2 in the MENA 50 Best Restaurants 2024 list and #13 in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2024 list (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024).
- Ossiano ranked #3 in the MENA 50 Best Restaurants 2024 list (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024).
- Moonrise ranked #4 in the MENA 50 Best Restaurants 2024 list (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024).
- Dubai placed 19 establishments in the MENA 50 Best Restaurants 2024 top 50 (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024).
For a Middle Eastern cuisine article, these rankings matter because they indicate that the regional food scene is not only commercially active but also internationally legible. Cuisine is being measured through both search volume and top-tier recognition.
Broader UAE and Saudi market context
Dubai is the headline market in the dataset, but the wider UAE and Saudi numbers help frame the regional food economy.
In the UAE, the food service market was valued at $8.5 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $14.2 billion by 2032, with a 6.25% CAGR from 2025 to 2032 (Exporter Guide Annual, Dubai, UAE). That forecast suggests a large and still-expanding base for restaurant concepts across the country.
The retail and supply side also looks substantial:
- UAE consumer-oriented agricultural imports reached $16.2 billion in 2024.
- Those imports were 13.7% higher than in 2023.
- The United States supplied $1.2 billion of those imports.
- US goods represented 7.3% of the UAE’s consumer-oriented agricultural imports.
- The UAE population reached 11.3 million in 2024, up 5.7% from 2023.
- Foreign nationals comprised nearly 89% of the population.
- About 80% of the UAE’s agricultural products are imported (Retail Foods Annual, Dubai, UAE).
Those numbers matter for cuisine because imported ingredients, a multinational population, and large food-service demand all support a diverse menu economy.
Food e-commerce is also growing:
- UAE food e-commerce grew from $974 million in 2023 to $1.1 billion in 2024.
- That was 13% year over year growth.
- It is projected to reach $1.22 billion in 2025 (Retail Foods Annual, Dubai, UAE).
Grocery retail adds another layer:
- Grocery retail sales in the UAE reached $18.2 billion in 2024.
- That was 3.86% higher than 2023.
- Growth of about 3.15% is expected in 2025 (Retail Foods Annual, Dubai, UAE).
Saudi Arabia provides a useful regional comparison:
- Food retail sales reached more than $50 billion in 2024.
- Food service sales reached $29 billion in 2024.
- Food retail sales are expected to grow about 5% in 2025.
- Food service sales are expected to grow about 10% annually in the next few years.
- Saudi Arabia has 1,300 registered food industry companies.
- About 80% of those are large companies with more than 100 employees.
- Saudi food processing sales account for more than 75% of overall revenue in that sector.
- Total investment in Saudi food processing is estimated at $60 billion.
- The five major Saudi retail chains represent more than 80% of retail revenues (Saudi Arabia Market Fact Sheet 2025).
This broader context reinforces a central point: Middle Eastern cuisine statistics sit inside a region with large food markets, strong import dependence, and enough consumer scale to support both everyday dining and premium restaurant experiences.
How to read these statistics
When you look at Middle Eastern cuisine statistics together, four patterns stand out.
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Demand is multi-source. Dubai’s arrivals come from the GCC and MENA, Western Europe, South Asia, and several other regions, so cuisine demand is driven by a diverse audience mix (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024).
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Search interest is broadening. Dubai-related F&B searches rose to 741,500 in the first seven months of 2024, and several cuisine categories, including Lebanese, Persian, Chinese, Italian, and Thai, all showed upward movement (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024).
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The restaurant ecosystem is still expanding. Almost 1,200 new restaurant licences and a larger MICHELIN footprint point to a market that keeps adding both quantity and prestige (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024 press release).
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Cuisine type is a major decision factor. With 49% of respondents naming cuisine type as one of the most important dining factors, the menu itself remains a central competitive tool (Dubai Gastronomy Industry Report 2024 press release).
For anyone researching Middle Eastern cuisine statistics, the main takeaway is that the category is not just about heritage or flavor. It is tied to tourism, online discovery, resident behavior, restaurant strategy, and market-level growth across the Gulf.