Dubai restaurant uses ChatGPT to help create 'best pizza' for diners

Casual chain Dodo Pizza inspired by AI-generated recipe for new dish

A chicken pizza with tahini sauce and zaatar mix by Dodo Pizza. Photo: Dodo Pizza

It seems ChatGPT is not only coming for writers, with restaurateurs now using the artificial intelligence chatbot to create recipes. New Dubai venue Dodo Pizza is serving a dish inspired by a recipe recommended by the chatbot.

When chef Spartak Arutyunyan typed “pizza for Dubai customers” on the bot's website, it produced a recipe that features lamb kofta on a thin dough, with a sauce made of tahini and sumac.

OpenAI's chatbot, which has been controversially used to write school essays, poems and cover letters, also recommended sprinkling zaatar on top of the pizza.

“I needed some creative help with my pizza, so I asked ChatGPT to help me out, and create the best pizza for the UAE,” says Arutyunyan in a video that shows the pizza being made. The pie will be part of Dodo Pizza's menu when a new outpost of the Russian-owned chain opens in Dubai Marina on February 18.

“I wanted to make something special for the opening of the first store in Dubai as it's a big step for us to launch here,” he says.

The chef tweaked the ChatGPT recipe, opting to use chicken instead of lamb, with lime, paprika and other spices. He says: “Chicken is a more popular ingredient here, and lamb is really hard to find."

The AI bot also suggested using feta cheese as a topping, but the final product features paneer cheese instead.

However, other ingredient suggestions were kept, including the zaatar and a customised tahini sauce.

Dodo Pizza has restaurants in more than 15 countries and is part of Dodo Brands, which has two other brands under its belt, coffee shop DrinkIt and Doner 42.

AI-generated recipes

It is not the first time AI has been used to generate recipes. A video by The New York Times demonstrated how ChatGPT could produce Thanksgiving recipes in November last year, leading to dismal reviews of the dishes by the publication's food critics.

"I don't think it will ever replace the warmth of the storytelling that happens in recipes, the intuition required and the soul that goes into generating a recipe," journalist Priya Krishna said in the video.

However, this doesn't discredit the fact that a lot of people are turning to AI for recipe recommendations. Following the popularity of ChatGPT, ChefGPT was launched by OpenAI. The platform aims to recommend recipes and meal plans, so people never have to "worry about what's for dinner again".

Two weeks after the platform's January launch, it had garnered 40,000 users and generated more than 35,000 recipes, according to its developer Stefano Cantu, a marketing manager at cryptocurrency firm Binance.

The platform has different modes, with full access costing $2.99. It asks users for a range of details, including what ingredients are available to them, before generating a meal suggestion. One of the modes is a specialised bot that can generate recipes based on users' macronutrient requirements.