Restaurant fit-out in Dubai costs between AED 350 and AED 1,400 per square foot, and takes 16 to 30 weeks from appointment to opening. A casual dining outlet of 2,000 sq ft typically lands between AED 900,000 and AED 1.6 million. The back of house, which customers never see, usually consumes 40 to 55 percent of that budget.
F&B is the most technically demanding fit-out per square foot in the UAE. A retail unit needs a shopfront and lighting. A restaurant needs a commercial kitchen with extract, grease management, gas, drainage falls, cold rooms and a hygiene-compliant material specification, and every one of those is inspected before you are allowed to open.
The same 2,000 sq ft delivered as an office, a shop and a restaurant produces three very different numbers.
| Sector | AED / sq ft | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Office | 160 – 420 | Partitions, joinery, MEP modification |
| Retail | 300 – 850 | Shopfront, display joinery, lighting design |
| Restaurant | 350 – 1,400 | All of the above, plus a commercial kitchen |
For the office figures see office fit-out cost in Dubai, and for the retail side see retail fit-out in Dubai.
The kitchen is the difference. A commercial kitchen carries mechanical extract and make-up air, grease filtration, gas supply and safety shutoff, floor gullies and drainage falls, grease interceptors, cold rooms, hot and cold water at multiple points, dedicated power for heavy equipment, and a fire suppression system over the cooking line. That is a full MEP package in its own right, sitting on top of the one serving the dining room.
None of it scales down. A 400 sq ft café kitchen carries most of the same systems as a 1,200 sq ft restaurant kitchen, which is why small F&B units show the highest cost per square foot in the market.
| Format | AED / sq ft | AED / sq m |
|---|---|---|
| Kiosk or grab-and-go counter | 350 – 550 | 3,800 – 5,900 |
| Café or coffee shop | 450 – 750 | 4,800 – 8,100 |
| Casual dining | 550 – 900 | 5,900 – 9,700 |
| Full-service restaurant | 750 – 1,100 | 8,100 – 11,800 |
| Fine dining or destination venue | 1,000 – 1,400+ | 10,800 – 15,100+ |
Indicative build ranges. Exclude kitchen equipment supply, furniture, POS, licences and landlord deposits.
| Package | Share of build cost |
|---|---|
| Commercial kitchen MEP: extract, make-up air, gas, drainage, grease | 20 – 28% |
| General MEP: HVAC, electrical, plumbing, fire | 15 – 20% |
| Joinery: bar, back bar, banquettes, service stations, host desk | 15 – 22% |
| Finishes: flooring, wall treatments, ceilings | 10 – 15% |
| Lighting and AV | 5 – 10% |
| Civil, partitions, waterproofing | 8 – 12% |
| Preliminaries, supervision, insurance | 6 – 10% |
| Design, documentation, authority submissions | 5 – 8% |
The bar and back bar are usually the largest single joinery item in a restaurant, running AED 45,000 to AED 250,000 depending on materials and detailing. What drives that range is covered in joinery works in Dubai, and it is worth reading before you approve a bar design, because the finish specification moves the number more than the size does.
Two packages sit outside the fit-out contract entirely and routinely surprise operators.
Kitchen equipment. Combi ovens, ranges, fryers, refrigeration, dishwash. Typically AED 150,000 to AED 800,000 depending on the menu. Usually procured by the operator or a specialist supplier, not the fit-out contractor.
Furniture. Tables, chairs, banquette upholstery, bar stools. AED 60,000 to AED 400,000. Fixed banquette frames are joinery; loose furniture is separate procurement.
Confirm early who is buying what. The gap between the contractor’s scope and the equipment supplier’s scope is where things go missing.
This is the part that decides whether the project works.
Extract and make-up air. The canopy extracts contaminated air; make-up air replaces it. Get the balance wrong and the kitchen goes negative, pulling air from the dining room, dragging cooking smells into the front of house and slamming doors. Positive pressure in the dining room and slight negative in the kitchen is the target.
Grease management. Canopy filters, a cleanable duct route with access panels at every change of direction, and a fan positioned for maintenance access. Ductwork must be accessible for cleaning across its whole length, and this is a common inspection failure.
The discharge point. Where the extract terminates is frequently the hardest problem on a Dubai F&B project. In a mall or a mixed-use tower you are discharging into a shared building, and the landlord dictates the route and termination. In some buildings the available riser is already at capacity. Confirm the extract route before you sign the lease. It is the single most expensive thing to discover late.
Grease interceptor. Required for kitchen waste. Sized against the fixture load and the authority requirements. Needs a location with access for pumping.
Drainage falls. Kitchen floors need gullies and correctly graded falls. This affects the floor build-up, which affects the ceiling height below, which affects everything above.
Gas. Supply, isolation, gas detection, emergency shutoff interlocked with the extract. Separate approvals and a specialist contractor.
Fire suppression. A wet chemical system over the cooking line, interlocked with the gas shutoff and the building fire alarm. Civil Defence approved and inspected.
Cold rooms. Walk-in chillers and freezers need floor build-up, condensate drainage, condenser locations and dedicated power. Their position is fixed early and is difficult to change later.
Finishes. Impervious, cleanable, coved at wall-to-floor junctions. Dubai Municipality Food Safety specifies acceptable materials. Standard commercial finishes will not pass.
More authorities than any other sector, and they run in sequence rather than parallel.
| Authority | Covers |
|---|---|
| Dubai Municipality — Building | Fit-out permit, interior alterations |
| DM Food Safety Department | Kitchen layout, finishes, workflow, storage, handwash provision, grease management |
| Dubai Civil Defence | Fire detection, suppression, kitchen hood system, escape routes |
| DEWA | Electrical load, water supply |
| Food and trade licensing | Food trade licence, food handler permits |
| Landlord or mall management | Design review, extract route, working hours, deposits |
Food Safety is the one that catches people. The department reviews kitchen layout against workflow principles: raw and cooked separation, no cross-contamination paths, handwash basins at defined points, adequate storage segregation, cleanable surfaces throughout. A kitchen designed around chef preference rather than compliance comes back with comments, and those comments arrive after the layout has already driven the rest of the design.
Involve someone who has taken a kitchen through Food Safety before you finalise the layout, not after. The full submission sequence across all these authorities is covered in our guide to Dubai Municipality fit-out approval.
| Stage | Duration |
|---|---|
| Concept, menu-driven kitchen planning, layout | 3 – 5 weeks |
| Detailed design and documentation | 3 – 4 weeks |
| Authority submissions and approvals | 5 – 9 weeks |
| Procurement and joinery production | 4 – 8 weeks (parallel) |
| Construction | 8 – 14 weeks |
| Kitchen equipment installation and commissioning | 2 – 3 weeks |
| Inspections, snagging, handover | 2 – 3 weeks |
| Staff training and soft opening | 1 – 2 weeks |
Total: 16 to 30 weeks. How this compares across sectors is set out in how long a fit-out takes in Dubai.
The menu drives the kitchen. The kitchen drives the extract, the gas, the drainage and the power. Those drive the approvals. Nothing meaningful can be finalised until the menu and equipment schedule are settled, which is why F&B projects that begin design before the operator has committed to a menu almost always run over.
Rent typically starts at unit handover. On a 24-week programme that is roughly six months of rent before the first cover is served, which is usually a larger number than any saving available on the build.
Between AED 350 and AED 1,400 per square foot depending on format. A café runs AED 450 to 750, casual dining AED 550 to 900, full-service restaurants AED 750 to 1,100, and fine dining above AED 1,000. A 2,000 sq ft casual dining outlet typically costs AED 900,000 to AED 1.6 million for the build, excluding kitchen equipment and furniture.
Sixteen to thirty weeks from appointment to opening. Design and kitchen planning take 6 to 9 weeks, authority approvals 5 to 9 weeks, construction 8 to 14 weeks, and equipment commissioning, inspection and staff training a further 5 to 8 weeks. The menu must be settled before the kitchen can be designed, so operator decisions sit on the critical path.
Usually not. Combi ovens, ranges, refrigeration and dishwash are normally procured by the operator or a specialist catering equipment supplier, typically AED 150,000 to AED 800,000. The contractor provides the services those items connect to, which means the equipment schedule with loads, dimensions and service requirements must be issued before first fix.
Extract discharge and Civil Defence approval. The extract route through a shared building is often constrained and sometimes impossible in the intended location, and it should be verified before signing the lease. Civil Defence inspection is the final gate and cannot happen until installation is complete, so any construction slippage pushes the opening date directly.
Yes, and the mall’s tenant design manual will govern the shopfront, signage, working hours and extract route. Mall F&B units carry the same fixed fit-out period and overnight working restrictions as retail units, which is covered in the retail fit-out guide. The extract route is the critical item to confirm with mall management before committing.
An impervious, slip-resistant, cleanable finish with graded falls to floor gullies and coved junctions at the wall. Epoxy or resin systems and specialist quarry tile are the common choices. Dubai Municipality Food Safety reviews the specification, and standard commercial flooring will not be accepted.
The technical decisions on a restaurant are made in the first three weeks, not on site. Extract route, kitchen layout, equipment schedule and drainage falls all lock in early, and each one constrains everything that follows. Projects that resolve those before the design develops finish on programme. Projects that leave them open do not.
Hitesh Design & Build delivers hospitality projects with interior design and fit-out, MEP and technical services and architectural design with authority approvals under one contract, which matters more in F&B than any other sector because the kitchen services and the authority submissions are the project.
See our fine dining, café and lounge case studies, or read what fit-out work involves and how to choose a fit-out contractor in Dubai.
If you have a unit and a menu, send us the details and we will tell you whether the extract and the services work before you commit to a design.
