Inside Natasha Sideris’s culinary lab, where food innovation takes centre stage

Tashas Group restaurants will serve dishes and drinks invented at The Academy in Dubai

Restaurateur Natasha Sideris at The Academy in Dubai. Antonie Robertson / The National

Having a book on fermentation by Noma restaurant’s chef Rene Redzepi – among the dozens of other culinary titles in her collection – is a mere coincidence, insists Dubai restaurateur Natasha Sideris. “I am nowhere close to being the innovator or culinary genius Rene is,” she says, with her trademark hearty laugh.

She is only partially right. Redzepi has declared he will shut down his multi-award-winning restaurant in Copenhagen before embarking on a test kitchen to develop new flavours. Sideris, Meanwhile, has marked 2025 as the year to launch The Academy – an innovation hub for food and drink – and to open 16 restaurants in the UAE and beyond, expanding her portfolio of 38 venues in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.

A first look at The Academy in Al Quoz reveals a space that almost demands creative thinking. A “tasting table” sits in the centre, surrounded by cookbooks and colourful objets d’art from African Lounge, the retail wing of Sideris’s Tashas Group. It is flanked on one side by a state-of-the-art kitchen with cheery pink and maroon tiles. The other end is a bar station, but it looks more like an alchemy laboratory, lined with dark glass bottles holding all manner of ingredients from pink pepper, tonka beans and macadamia nuts to chamomile, cocoa-chilli and shiso leaf.

Mocktail revolution

Mixologist Krystian Hordejuk, beverage director at Tashas, describes his workspace as “a library full of flavours”. Of his recent creations, he is most proud of Yuzu Fizz.

“It’s a non-alcoholic take on a G & T made with carbonated Tanqueray 0.0%, sour grape verjuice and organic yuzu essence. Because we make it in limited batches on a weekly basis, it is refreshing, tasty and offers people a chance to enjoy a drink in a social setting without feeling the pressure to drink alcohol.”

Krystian Hordejuk, beverage director at Tashas, pours a mocktail. Antonie Robertson / The National

Sideris says mocktails are set to grow exponentially as people take their wellness ever more seriously. “Whether they are worried about ageing or the prominence of more serious diseases, people are conscious about what they are putting in their bodies,” she says.

Mocktail flavours have come a long way. “Earlier, a mocktail was predominantly sugar syrup with fruit pulp and lemon juice or ginger ale. Now the industry has moved on, both in terms of innovative flavours and 0.0 per cent spirits, which bartenders can substitute in classic cocktail recipes or use to make ad hoc creations,” adds Hordejuk.

Innovative concoctions have always been at the centre of the Tashas Group’s drinks offering. For instance, the Perlage bar, one of the brand’s trio of venues in Abu Dhabi, serves grown-up mocktails with ingredients such as non-alcoholic amaretto, verjuice and black lime soda.

However, Hordejuk says: “The Academy pushes the envelope in that it allows us to be creative and inspired in a non-interrupted space rather than an operational restaurant.” Once a recipe has been formulated, tweaked and approved, Hordejuk can train his team of bartenders in The Academy itself, before they serve guests the new drinks from their busy bars.

Thermidor with a twist

The same also applies to food. Jill Okkers, the group’s culinary director, is thrilled to have a kitchen dedicated solely to innovation. She gives the example of a dish recently added to the Flamingo Room menu. The restaurant’s take on baked lobster entails deshelling a whole lobster, stuffing it with a prawn thermidor mousse, covering it in puff pastry and baking it in the oven. It is, unsurprisingly, a crowd favourite.

The Academy will be a space where guests can preview dishes and drinks for tashas. Photo: Tashas Group

“Imagine having to experiment with extravagant dishes such as this in a busy kitchen,” says Okkers. “The Academy offers the freedom to be more playful and for the menu to evolve faster.”

Next on her to-try list is a plant-based schnitzel with roasted fragrant aubergine, served with dukkah, a celery-raisin salad and yoghurt labneh dip, as well as a sharing-style tuna tartare served as a main course rather than appetiser.

“I think it’s important to maintain a balance between new dishes and good, old classics,” says Sideris. “If you over-innovate, you’re going to confuse your customer. If you don’t innovate at all, people are going to get bored. The Academy is an opportunity to be a lot more experimental in a calm space.”

What's next?

Eventually, the venue, in Dubai’s Alserkal Avenue, will open to guests to gather around the tasting table. This not only enables foodies and fans of the brand to preview dishes, but also to offer feedback for the team before they introduce them at the restaurants.

Masterclasses on salads and bread-making are also on the cards, as is renting out the space for private events. On a wider scale, Sideris is set to launch restaurants across her nine brands, from Avli in Bahrain to tashas in Riyadh, plus five venues in her native South Africa.

In the UAE, four new branches are in the pipeline – for Sharjah, Al Ain, Nad Al Sheba and Ras Al Khaimah, which will also have an outpost of Bungalo34 in a beach club format. “I am most excited about RAK,” says Sideris. “It’s such a forward-thinking location with so much innovation potential.” The same could be said of the restaurateur herself.