Manna opens two new sites in Dubai and Riyadh
Manna smash burger opens two Middle East sites, in Dubai's DIFC and Riyadh's Al Dabab, taking Feroz Gajia's four-year-old format to seven addresses across two regions.
Manna, the smash burger brand chef Feroz Gajia built out of a food hall stall in Fitzrovia, opens its third and fourth sites outside the UK this autumn, in Dubai's DIFC and Riyadh's Al Dabab district.
The DIFC site opened on 23 September, inside Dubai's financial district, where lunch trade runs on expense accounts and quick turnarounds. Five days later, Manna opened in Al Dabab, a newer retail and dining pocket of Riyadh, its first Saudi Arabia address.
Gajia launched Manna in 2022 as a partnership with Arcade, the food hall operator, inside its Tottenham Court Road site. The format stuck to a short menu: Double Manna, Classic Smash, waffle fries, built around a thin, well-seared patty rather than a thick one, in a London scene where chefs keep trading fine dining for a griddle.
What's made Manna what it is has always been the people around it, the neighbourhoods, the regulars.
From a food hall stall to DIFC
Three more UK sites followed: Battersea Power Station, the Arcade Covent Garden flagship, and a standalone restaurant that opened in Marylebone in September. That gives Manna four UK addresses and three in the Middle East, a seven-site count built in four years without a regional franchise partner running day-to-day service.
The Middle East menu keeps the core burgers and fries, with additions created for the two new markets that the brand has not detailed publicly. Both openings follow the same kitchen specification as London, Manna said, down to the bun supplier.
"What's made Manna what it is has always been the people around it, the neighbourhoods, the regulars," Gajia said. "We've never wanted to be the biggest smash burger, just the best one."
Growth without a franchise model
The Gulf has become a proving ground for London fast-casual brands this year, with several UK bakery and burger names opening Middle Eastern outposts alongside fine-dining transplants such as Gymkhana's DIFC dining room. Manna's approach differs in keeping the Dubai and Riyadh kitchens under direct oversight rather than licensing the name to a regional operator, the route several rivals have used to scale faster.
Gajia has not said where Manna opens next, only that growth will stay tied to cities "where the format makes sense" rather than a fixed site target.
