Moonrise Takes Dubai Cuisine to Almaty with AUYL Collaboration

Visit Dubai and ByChefs, the UAE-founded international restaurant ranking, are bringing one of Dubai’s leading homegrown restaurants, Moonrise, to Almaty this September. On 21 September, Chef Solemann Haddad will join Kazakhstan’s AUYL for a one-night-only dinner, showcasing his distinctive interpretation of “Dubai Cuisine” through a collaborative menu created with the AUYL team.

The dinner forms part of a wider effort by Visit Dubai and ByChefs to showcase Dubai’s evolving culinary identity internationally, bringing together one of the city’s most distinctive homegrown chefs with a restaurant equally rooted in its own culture and sense of place.

Born and raised in Dubai, Solemann grew up surrounded by the cultural intersections that define the city. That experience became the foundation of Moonrise: a cuisine that moves between Middle Eastern, French and Japanese influences, but which Solemann describes more simply as “Dubai Cuisine.”

For Visit Dubai and ByChefs, the collaboration is an opportunity to introduce Almaty diners to the creativity and diversity of Dubai’s homegrown restaurant scene and inspire them to experience it firsthand. Through Moonrise, guests will encounter a culinary perspective that could only have emerged from Dubai — shaped by its people, cultures and position as a global meeting point.

Chef Solemann Haddad, Founder and Chef of Moonrise, says: “Moonrise has always been my way of telling the story of Dubai and the food I grew up around, so taking it outside the UAE for the first time feels like a really important moment for us. This isn’t about simply bringing a Moonrise menu somewhere else. It’s about showing what Dubai Cuisine means to us, while having a genuine exchange with another restaurant that has an equally strong sense of place and identity. AUYL has that, and I think there are some really interesting parallels between the way we both look at culture, memory and food.”

At the heart of AUYL’s kitchen are three ingredients fundamental to nomadic food culture — water, flour and meat — with dishes prepared over open fire and through techniques involving the kazan, mangal and tandoor. Some herbs and vegetables are also grown on a small farm on the restaurant’s grounds.

It is this strong sense of place that provides the foundation for the collaboration: Moonrise bringing its interpretation of contemporary Dubai to Almaty, and AUYL bringing contemporary Central Asia to the same table.

For the one-night-only menu, the two culinary perspectives move back and forth across a series of dishes rather than attempting to merge into a single cuisine.

The evening begins with Foie Gras Puri, featuring foie gras ganache, pineapple chutney, chilli oil and date syrup, alongside Baursaks stuffed with braised horse meat and porcini mushrooms, served with Moonrise Dynamite Sauce.

Seafood follows with Market Prawns, accompanied by asparagus, toum ranch, dill oil, ponzu and potato tartlet, before Scallop with tare, apple, green tomato and jusai salsa oil, paired with Moonrise Orange Sarookh.

One of Solemann’s signatures also makes the journey from Dubai: Shawarma, prepared with Wagyu striploin MB11–12, loomi seasoning, shawarma marinade, Mexici sauce and pickled turnip.

The dinner closes with Banoffee, bringing together banana crémeux, banana compote, croustillant, ganache, chocolate tuile and gahwa caramel, followed by a selection of local sweet petit fours.

 (Auyl Spokes person) says: ““AUYL has always been about exploring Central Asian culture through a contemporary lens, so welcoming Moonrise to Almaty feels like a natural exchange between two restaurants shaped by the places they call home. Dubai and Kazakhstan have very different culinary histories, but there is a shared curiosity in how we approach ingredients, memory and tradition. We’re excited to bring those perspectives together for one evening and to introduce our guests to Solemann’s interpretation of Dubai Cuisine.””

More than a one-night dinner, the collaboration provides an opportunity to showcase the evolution of Dubai’s homegrown dining scene on an international stage. Through Moonrise and Solemann’s deeply personal interpretation of Dubai Cuisine, guests in Almaty will experience a restaurant and chef shaped by a city where cultures, ingredients and culinary traditions continuously intersect.

Selected to represent Dubai’s homegrown dining scene in Almaty, Moonrise brings a culinary perspective shaped entirely by the city, creating an exchange with AUYL that places contemporary Dubai and Central Asia at the same table.