Dubai’s Lapa Eatery aspires to open the city to clean eating
Saeed AlMuhairy launched the clean eating concept Lapa Eatery in November 2022. Located in Jumeirah, Dubai, the restaurant offers gluten, dairy, and sugar free food.
In 2022, Jumeirah Beach Road landed a spot in Time Out’s ‘coolest streets in the world’. From food and culture to fun and a sense of community, the street has it all.
Located in its midst is , a clean food concept offering a pastel, minimalist, and well-lit ambience, some greens here and there, a calm escape, and of course, guilt-free, clean food.
While we may have our favourite spots when it comes to restaurants, cafes, and shopping centres on the street, Lapa Eatery presents a unique concept.
The Jumeirah Beach Road is known for perfectly blending Dubai’s past and present, and Lapa wants Dubai’s food lovers to experience healthier food options.
Founder Saeed AlMuhairy’s journey of starting a restaurant began in 2017 after he was hospitalised for a health issue. Fortunately, it was a false alarm. However, the hospital stay nudged him towards clean eating.
Having been in the business circles for almost three decades, AlMuhairy had seen markets rise and fall across sectors, especially in the real estate and F&B segment. And like many of us, he had not paid as much attention to his health and lifestyle, as he had to his career.
The health scare made him sit back and reflect on his journey. Sharing how the incident affected him, AlMuhairy says, “I decided to focus on health as a value that I need to be driven by.”
He began clean food restaurant Lapa Eatery in 2022.
The restaurant provides everything ranging from vegan options, to food that is free of preservatives, unhealthy ingredients, and additives. The flavour range that the restaurant offers is as palatable as it can get. You have options such as beetroot pancake, macadamia cheesecake, spiced pumpkin soup, to name a few.
Switching to a healthier lifestyle
In 2021, while the world was battling the COVID-19 pandemic, AlMuhairy faced health concerns. During this time, he found out that he had been suffering from certain allergies and other associated health issues.
“I would visit doctors and they would give me medicines which only provided temporary recovery. My health was not improving. After a while, I realised that I needed to follow a different approach and find another solution,” he shares.
He wanted to experiment with alternative methods of improving his health, and began with clean eating.
“I started thinking of alternative medicine and researched in this area. After initial reluctance, I thought, why not try?” he says.
Clean eating focuses on consumption of fresh and whole foods, and requires straying away from processed foods.
Gluten, dairy, and sugar were the first few ingredients AlMuhairy got rid of. Overtime, he noticed positive changes in his health.
In the meantime, he realised that the clean food space was a growing market.
Over the past three decades, AlMuhairy had been involved in optimising and scaling businesses across industries ranging from real estate and asset management, finance and banking, private equity, F&B, oil and gas, marketing, to retail.
In 2005, he established Jananah Investment LLC, with the aim of investing in real estate. Later, after observing a growth in GCC’s food and beverage space, he acquired the brand operations of Applebee, an American casual dining restaurant chain, in the UAE market. He exited the business in 2019.
“I dug deeper and found that the domain of clean food presents a huge business opportunity. People are exploring a sustainable lifestyle. They want the food they are consuming to be good for their health,” he says.
This led him to start Lapa Eatery. Currently, the team comprises 11 individuals.
Market and the road ahead
The health and wellness market in the GCC is expected to grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 5.33% during 2022-2027, as per a report by IMARC group.
Increasing cases of chronic diseases and focus on natural remedies for treatment are contributing to the adoption of active lifestyles and balanced diet among the GCC residents, added the report.
Lapa Eatery is competing with the likes of Eat Well by Dubai Herbal and Treatment Center, Bestro, Biorganic Cafe, Comptoir 102, and Menagerie.
“We have captured around 70-80 loyal customers in the past three months,” says AlMuhairy.
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Apart from exploring regional expansion starting with UAE and Saudi, AlMuhairy intends to introduce meal plans and catering services in the near future.
At present, Lapa Eatery is bootstrapped. It provides options including dine-in and take-away. In partnership with food delivery platform Talabat, it also provides home delivery.
“We are also planning to introduce training courses to help people learn more about clean food and cook it themselves,” says AlMuhairy.
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Edited by Affirunisa Kankudti