How to Compare Restaurant Consultants in Dubai: Seven Questions to Put to Every Firm in Writing

An owner comparing several consultancies wrote to say they would come back once the comparison was done. Fair enough. What follows is the method we would use in their position — not to make the choice for them, but to make three unlike proposals comparable. It is seven questions, each put in writing to every firm, with the written answers compared side by side. The meetings are where you learn whether you can work with someone; the written answers are where you learn what you are buying.

Why proposals from Dubai consultancies are hard to compare

Restaurant consulting in Dubai spans everything from a chef who will write a menu, to a design studio that will brand a room, to a project manager who will run a fit-out, to a firm that carries the whole development from the first number to opening night. The proposals arrive with different scopes, different fee bases and different assumptions about who does what, and the totals on the last page are therefore not the same quantity. Comparing them directly is like comparing a rent per square foot to a rent per year.

The fix is not a longer meeting. It is a short set of questions that forces every proposal into the same shape.

The seven questions

Question 1 · What is the basis of the fee, and what scope does that basis cover?

Fixed for a defined scope, a percentage of the project capital, or mixed. A proposal that gives a number without a basis has not answered. Ask what triggers a re-scope and how a re-scope is priced, because that is where a fixed fee either holds or quietly turns into something else. The long version of this question is in how a restaurant development mandate is priced in the UAE.

Question 2 · Does the firm earn any margin, rebate or commission on any appointment made in the project?

Kitchen equipment, fit-out contractor, POS, design studio, furniture. The answer you want is a written “no”, together with the mechanism that makes it true: you pay every supplier directly, against the supplier’s own quotation, which you have seen. The answer to be wary of is a description of how convenient it is to have everything handled.

Question 3 · Who holds the licensed roles?

Architectural design, MEP engineering and the authority submissions in the UAE are held by licensed parties. A consultancy that says it does everything in-house is either licensed for those roles — ask which licence and for which emirate — or is describing coordination as execution. Neither is disqualifying. The honest structure names the licensed roles, names who holds them, and says which sit with the consultancy as the owner’s representative. How that structure works in practice is set out in how a development principal works with the architect of record.

Question 4 · What is the deliverable of the first phase — a decision or a document?

A feasibility phase should end in a written go, revise or stop, argued to you in a meeting, with the numbers that produced it. Ask each firm to describe the last page of their study. If it is a recommendation with a sensitivity table, you are buying a decision. If it is an executive summary, you are buying a document, and you will still have the decision to make afterwards.

Question 5 · What proof can the firm show, and under what consent?

Named venues can only be shown with the client’s written consent. Anonymised work should say that it is anonymised and why. A portfolio of named restaurants with no consent trail is not a credential; it is a habit you will be part of later. Ask how each piece of proof was cleared, and read the answer for whether the firm treats its clients’ names as its own.

Question 6 · What is owed if the project stops at a decision gate?

The study fee, stated plainly, and nothing else — and whether the study is credited against the mandate if you proceed. This one question tells you whether the first phase is a decision or the first step of a sale; what a stop costs and what a go buys explains why.

Question 7 · Who will we actually deal with?

The person in the meeting is not always the person on the project. Ask who reads the enquiry, who runs the study, who attends the decision meeting and who sits in the weekly review during the mandate. A founder-led firm should say the founder; a larger firm should name the lead and say how much of their week is yours.

Reading the answers

Lay the seven answers side by side. Three patterns emerge quickly.

The firm that answers all seven plainly has nothing in its model that depended on not being asked. That is the strongest single signal you will get before signing anything.

The firm that answers five and changes the subject on two — usually the margin question and the stop question — has told you where its income actually comes from. Read its proposal with that in mind, and price the silence.

The firm whose answers are all in the meeting and none on paper has asked you to trust a conversation with a nine-month engagement. Ask again in writing. The second request is the test.

Two things the questions will not tell you

The seven questions make proposals comparable; they do not make the choice. Two judgements remain the owner’s, and they are worth naming so they are made deliberately.

Fit with your own decision style. A development mandate runs for the better part of a year through decision gates the owner has to approve. An owner who wants to decide everything needs a consultancy that will bring every option; an owner who wants to decide only the gates needs one that will run the programme between them without asking. Both are legitimate. Ask each firm how many decisions they will bring you in a typical month of the mandate, and read the answer against how you actually like to work.

The market the firm has actually operated in. Restaurants in Dubai carry a rent structure, a labour market, a licensing route and a delivery channel that do not resemble London’s or Mumbai’s. A consultancy whose experience is elsewhere can still be excellent, but its assumptions have to be re-based for the GCC, and the owner should ask which of its methods were rebuilt for this market and which were imported. The answer is usually honest and always informative.

Where GGB sits against the seven

For the record, and because the questions are only fair if we answer them ourselves: a fixed fee for a fixed scope, re-scoped only in writing; no margin on any supplier or contractor, with every third-party cost paid by the owner’s company directly against documented comparisons; licensed roles named and held by licensed parties, with GGB as the owner’s representative coordinating them; a study that ends in a written go, revise or stop; named proof only with consent and anonymised proof labelled as such; the study credited in full against the mandate within ninety days, nothing owed on a stop beyond the study; and the founder reads every enquiry and sits in every decision meeting. That is 28+ years of hospitality operations, 45+ F&B concepts developed and launched and 300+ project engagements answering for themselves — the counting method is on the about page.

Before you choose

Send the seven questions to every firm on the same day and give them a week. Firms that take the questions seriously will answer in writing without being chased. Then compare the answers, convert the fees to one basis, and read the scopes beside the totals. The choice usually makes itself; what the method does is make sure it is made on the engagement you will actually get, not on the first page you were shown.