Samira Sheth catches up with busy restaurateur Raed Dabbous

Restaurateur, entrepreneur, Superbowl fan, expert angler, passionate sailor- Raed Dabbous wears all these hats with ease. The owner of the very elegantly outfitted Harbour Club at the Fujairah Marine Club, Raed is easy-going and completely disarming in person.
And yet, this is the man who has set up a slew of successful restaurants across the UAE. Of Lebanese origin, Raed grew up in America. Armed with an MBA in finance from the States, he came to Dubai on a job with Fedex. The transition from finance to F&B was quite a natural one. Says Raed matter-of-factly, “I did a stint with the World Bank in D.C. and it was while I was there that I had an opportunity to start a restaurant. I used to love partying and having fun and I got into sushi but at the time, I thought most Japanese restaurants were really boring so I set up a sushi bar with a friend of mine. I was pretty young and we made it really funky – the restaurant really took off and ‘became something’, it was one of the firsts of its kind. I sold it a few months later and then came to Dubai on a job.”
Young and restless, Raed was soon ‘bored’ of the restaurant scene in Dubai. “There were almost no restaurants with character. I had an opportunity to start something here and Sho-Cho happened.”
For those who don’t know, Sho-Cho became only one of THE most popular hang-outs in Dubai almost as soon as it started in 1999. A trendy bar-cum restaurant, Sho-Cho still retains a strong and hip following and that is really saying something in the current prolific restaurant scene in Dubai. Again, it was something that pretty much happened serendipitously for Raed. He says, “I love to fish and I love sushi and then I met my partner, Hiba and she’d worked with Nobu in London.

She’s unbelievable. Hiba can do recipes and menus like no one else. She’s an excellent chef and very hands-on. She’s very shy but really she is the one who keeps all these restaurants we started going. I can do the concepts and the idea but then I want to move on. She is the stable one.”
With Sho-Cho being a success, the entrepreneur in Raed took over. He went on to help his sister launch the Circle Café in Dubai Media City and then with Hiba, he went on to start Flooka, a Mediterranean seafood place in Dubai and a branch of Sho-Cho in Abu Dhabi at the Shangri-La complex. The pair has also launched a Tex-Mex restaurant in Dubai.

And then Fujairah happened. “I could see the future here,” says Raed of his decision to start the Harbour Club, “And I love a challenge!”
And a challenge it certainly has been. From problems with the interiors contractor that led to the restaurant opening being delayed to the worldwide credit crunch that hit just a few months after the decision to open the restaurant, the road has been uphill for the Harbour Club. While its well-designed interiors and the food have been appreciated, it has yet to generate the kind of buzz created by Raed and Hiba’s other outlets.
But, the restaurant seems on the right track. The eclectic menu offers a host of traditional favourites like fish & chips and steak as well as some Tex-Mex influenced dishes like fajitas, nachos and an intriguing spinach and artichoke dip with tostada chips. The pizzas are great and the salads and signature big-mouth burgers are pretty good too. Of course, with Raed’s reputation as a keen fisherman, fish features pretty heavily on the menu and fresh fish at that. Where else in Fujairah, (and when Raed is in town) could you eat fish freshly caught by the owner? In fact, Raed and his team even won the inaugural Fujairah Classic tournament held in October. The winners of the tournament are invited to attend the prestigious International Game Fishing Association (IGAF) World Championships in Cabo San Lucas in Mexico this year and Raed is currently looking for sponsors to support the trip. Sponsoring the trip would be an amazing opportunity to garner publicity for Fujairah.
“I love Fujairah,” emphasizes Raed. “I think it’s really beautiful here and I spent almost all of summer here last year.” And he is keen to make the action happen.“We’d like to add some entertainment to the venue and maybe plan more events – maybe get a band, have a karaoke night or a cocktail night. I would really like to focus on the Harbour Club for now.”