Abu Dhabi’s oldest market shapes a modern chef’s kitchen

‘Every time we doubt the quality of vegetables from the hypermarkets, we get the chance to come here and pick out each one ourselves,’ says Clara Ida Jensen, sous chef at Restaurant Blue, describing her story at the Mina Zayed (Mina) Market.

The market has been part of her journey since the earliest testing days of the restaurant, long before it ever opened its doors. For her, visits to Mina Market are something of a ritual. "It's like going to a farmers' market, but more authentic," she said.

Though the restaurant sits at the heart of Mamsha Al Saadiyat, the best of its raw produce is still sourced from the city's oldest corners.

‘We come from Denmark, so there was a lot we wanted to learn about what's actually in season here,’ she said. ‘A lot of our philosophy is about using things that are in season not just getting everything shipped from all countries.’

As a chef, ingredients are her priority and Mina gives her a kind of control she can't find elsewhere.

‘No one has them prepacked for us. We might have five different cucumbers from five different countries. We can see what’s unique and choose from them (sic),’ she said, adding that she's often able to secure produce just hours after it arrives, and taste between the choices before she makes her pick.

That access, she explains, comes hand in hand with relationships. Her frequent visits to the market haven't just shaped her ingredients but her circle of new people and new traditions along the way. Their years-long experience in the market, is her guided route through their alleys.

‘The first time we saw the green plums that they eat with salt and lemon in Lebanon was at Mina Market,’ she shared one of her best inspirations, ‘they said that in Lebanon, they eat them when it’s the season with salt or sugar or even raw.’

But the market itself is evolving. Many of the old vendors, whose fathers were among the first to set up shops here, have now passed their stalls down to their children. 'This shop's name is as old as the marketplace itself,' says Mohamed Afsal, a date vendor at Mina Market. “This is my father’s shop, it’s almost 30 to 33 years old, and it’s in one of the oldest marketplaces in the GCC.”

Afsal said that most of the original shop owners here have since passed away. ‘Now it's run by their children: the second generation’ he said, adding that the market is home to so many employees who spend their days in every corner of it. ‘Those who come here don't leave this place. They either start a shop themselves or bring their children along too.’

According to him, Mina Market has always been evolving, with both good days and bad ones for sales. But with the added connectivity the buses provide to tourists and daily buyers, the market always stays on its feet. As one generation steps back, a new one steps in to take its place.

Abdul Salam, vendor at Green Lawn, a store of 25 years in the Mina Market, said that their products come from across different countries, ‘Back in the day, our product was only dates; now we have many products including sweets and others,’ he said.

Afsal reminisced about the days when his father first started out at Mina market. ‘My father sold dates from a pushcart on these roads, back in the day, under an umbrella. That's when His Highness Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the founding father of UAE, instructed the baladiya to provide this space to those vendors for free of charge. It started off with four shops, before it became a marketplace.’

‘I joined my father in 2008. Many things had changed by then, the port, the warehouses. I was working in one of them, before I joined here,’ Afsal said, describing the market he saw as it evolved.

‘The laws changed, the market changed, and we might join the new fish market soon,’ Salam added.

The plans are in place to transform Mina Zayed into a mixed-use destination, with a redefined plan by the Abu Dhabi government.

In addition to revamping the fishers' port, the project includes the renovation of the fish market, fruit and vegetable market, meat market, carpet market, dates market, and the wholesale market, according to official statements.