Middle East Restaurant Awards cancels in-person celebration of 50 Best
The third annual regional awards night was set to be held in Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi: The 2024 edition of the Middle East & North Africa’s 50 Best Restaurants will not have a live in-person event, the 50 Best team said in a press release on Friday.
The decision, the release said, was due to the ongoing Israel-Gaza war, adding, "50 Best believes that hosting an in-person, celebratory awards ceremony and associated events, would not be appropriate at this time."
The curated list of the 50 best restaurants will still be published.
The third annual regional awards were set to take place in Abu Dhabi in January. The 2023 event was also held in Abu Dhabi.
The 50 Best organization has a history of adapting to world events. In February 2022, it moved its annual ceremony from Moscow to London following the invasion of Ukraine and excluded Russian restaurants from the awards.
In the 2023 awards, UAE restaurants took the most slots on the list - 18. The top 50 included six Israeli restaurants, alongside five each from Egypt and Jordan, and three from Lebanon.
- Inputs from Bloomberg