Waste Hater: Omar Shihab
Waste Hater is a monthly series where we interview friends in the industry doing interesting and awesome work to reduce all kinds of waste, food or otherwise. This November, we spoke with Omar Shihab, Restauranteur, Sustainability Lead, and General Manager of BOCA in Dubai.
The bitter leaves of a cactus become pickles. Orange pulp transforms into a sweet syrup. Tomato skins dry and create seasoning powder. These are some of the fanciful techniques employed by chefs at BOCA, one of Dubai’s premiere restaurants, led by a formidable entrepreneur named Omar Shihab.
Shihab conceptualized the premise of BOCA nearly eight years ago during a gap year from his work as a business consultant. He got involved in a family project within the world of hospitality and quickly built his expertise in food and beverage.
As a longtime resident of Dubai, Shihab wanted to create a space for something novel, albeit home grown, and searched for a cuisine not yet available in the market. The initial idea evolved into a now popular Spanish tapas venue with a diverse array of local eats and seafood treasures.
“Dubai and the UAE are fascinated by imported ideas and brands – if an idea comes from Japan or New York, we think it must be good,” Shihab tells Replate. “I came up with this idea to rival those imports, as an homage to our local foods. We’re going to go out there and represent the underrated, lesser known fish varieties. We invest a lot in farmers, from those who are traditional to those in agri-tech. We go out and source good quality tomatoes and now we have our own oysters. We work with what’s in abundance rather than what’s endangered.”
When it comes to oysters, BOCA has established a personal brand. Common knowledge suggests oysters need cold water to thrive, but Shihab and his team discovered the fish is agile and adaptable to warm water. They source their oysters from a local farm known as Dibba Bay.
BOCA’s offerings are, thus, one of a kind.
“Warm water makes the oysters grow fatter, with more meat on them,” the GM explains. “They’re beautiful.”
Such a breakthrough was revelatory and inspiring for the restaurant. Shihab decided to take the mission further, seeking out other native ingredients and foraging the desert for plants.
It almost became a challenge – what can’t BOCA utilize in its kitchen?
“We have a lot of succulents – it’s a type of cactus – coming from different areas of the UAE,” Shihab says. “And we found a type of cactus in the mountains that’s extremely bitter. In the past, people would slow cook it into a stew to reduce bitterness, but we made a pickle out of it. The ingredients aren’t available commercially, so we had to source it from a guy and plant it outside the restaurant. We’re in an urban part of Dubai, right outside of the financial sector. There’s some greenery but it is pretty unusual to have a desert garden outside your place.”
From this farm-to-table perspective, Shihab began implementing a strategy that went beyond sourcing local products. He describes BOCA as a “tight operation,” meaning they live within their means. From day one, the team kept inventory in line with sales and demand, and closely monitored the business cycle.
The menu similarly remains contingent on interest, and Shihab makes no concessions when it comes to stock. If something is sold out, it’s sold out. Better than let it spoil. There’s even a board at the front-of-house to track what’s available.
“Every professional chef is trained to maximize every piece of ingredient whether it’s skins, the ends of vegetables, the carcass of meats,” Shihab points out. “We take it a step further and make sure items we prep or stock are kept to an absolute minimum, and we know it’s in line with demand. With our recipes, we make sure the ingredients are used in more than one meal to maximize their purpose, and everything on the plate is edible. We make sure not to serve too large of portions, that reduces waste at consumption. We repurpose glass bottles, we also save our cooking oil to be made into biodiesel.”
Shihab’s no nonsense approach accelerated about two years ago when waste became front and center in the UAE. He uses data to track their success and setbacks, and formalized a staff position to monitor progress.
At BOCA, every trash bag is weighed and examined, if a bartender or sous chef is throwing out too much, they look at solutions. The more creative, the better, and no department is off the hook.
“We make a syrup with peels and orange pulp that is used in cocktails, we dehydrate the skins of tomatoes and make a powder, we collect corks from wine bottles and create coasters or Christmas tree ornaments,” Shihab says. “We’ve had conversations with our supply partners about using reusable packaging, and all that feeds back into our P&L.”
Specifically, Shihab uses these metrics to secure better property deals. Where BOCA is located, all leaseholders pay a uniform waste management fee. Why should he pay the same with no waste?
“If I can track my waste and prove I’m reducing it month over month – why do you charge me the same as my neighbor?” Shihab argues.
And the numbers prove his point. Since last year, Shihab and the BOCA team have cut their waste by seven percent. All this supports a better bottom line.
“If I can reduce food cost by one percent, that is a big deal. That is huge,” he adds. “But the biggest factor is focusing on what’s close to home, and cheaper. It’s a challenge in the fine dining sector.”
But one that Shihab willingly accepts.
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