Hospitality Design Consultancy for UAE Projects
Commercial kitchen, hotel back-of-house and F&B facility design for Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah — documented against Dubai Municipality, ADAFSA and Civil Defence requirements so your local consultant submits once, not three times.
Dubai Municipality
DDA
Trakhees
ADAFSA
Civil Defence
Dubai Food Code
Al Sa’fat
Estidama Pearl
Dubai Municipality
DDA
Trakhees
ADAFSA
Civil Defence
Dubai Food Code
Al Sa’fat
Estidama Pearl
Design and documentation that survives the approval process.
THS Consulting is an India-based hospitality design consultancy working on UAE projects as the specialist design and documentation partner. We plan the kitchen, back-of-house and F&B facility, specify the equipment, and issue a coordinated drawing and BOQ set. Your appointed UAE-licensed consultant stamps and submits it. That division is deliberate — and it is how most international specialist consultants work here.
How the engagement works
Three parties,
one coordinated drawing set
In the UAE, drawings submitted to the authorities must come from a locally registered consultant. We do not pretend otherwise. What we do is make sure what gets submitted is right the first time.
01
THS designs and documents
Concept and detailed layouts, zoning and flow, equipment schedule and BOQ, utility loads for MEP coordination, ventilation and drainage intent, and tender-ready documentation.
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02
Your local consultant submits
Your appointed UAE-licensed consultant or contractor takes our set through Dubai Municipality, DDA, Trakhees or ADAFSA. We answer the technical queries raised during review.
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03
We stay through execution
Shop drawing review, equipment inspection, installation coordination, commissioning support and operational handover — with site visits at the milestones that justify them.
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The thing most briefs get wrong
Your approval route
follows the plot
A restaurant fit-out in Business Bay and an identical one in Deira do not go to the same authority. Jurisdiction follows the land, not the building type, and it has to be confirmed from the affection plan before anyone starts drawing.
Dubai Municipality — mainland plots
Food establishment layout approval through the Food Safety Department, alongside building and Civil Defence permits. The most common route, and the one most reference material assumes.
DDA — Dubai Development Authority areas
Business Bay, Downtown, Dubailand, Motor City, Sports City and similar master communities. Its own submission format and review cycle.
Trakhees / PCFC — free zone and port plots
Palm Jumeirah, Jebel Ali, the ports and associated free zone plots, with a separate engineering and health approval structure.
Abu Dhabi — a different sequence entirely
ADAFSA for food safety review, DMT for building permits, ADCDA for fire and life safety. Assuming the Dubai order of operations is the most expensive mistake we see.
200+
Hospitality & Foodservice Projects
15+
Years of Specialist Experience
4
UAE Approval Routes We Document For
ISO
9001:2015 Certified Quality System
Design requirements we build to
What review actually
checks on a layout
Recurring review points under the Dubai Food Code and equivalent emirate requirements. Each is cheap to resolve on a concept drawing and expensive to resolve on site.
- Flow & zoning
- Receiving to storage to preparation to cooking to service, without raw and cooked cross-flow. Toilets and chemical stores physically separated from food areas.
- Wall & ceiling finishes
- Smooth, light-coloured, non-absorbent wall finishes to not less than 2 m. Continuous cleanable ceilings with access provision for services above.
- Floors & junctions
- Impervious, non-slip floors in wet areas with coved wall-to-floor junctions and falls to drainage. Absorbent materials are not accepted.
- Drainage
- Trapped and vented gullies with removable covers, draining high-care to low-care, with no cross-connection to the potable supply.
- Lighting
- Graded by function — lower in storage and chillers, higher at wash and produce areas, highest at preparation with utensils and unpackaged high-risk food. Shielded fittings over exposed food.
- Ventilation
- Canopies with removable filters, sized to prevent grease and condensation on surfaces, make-up air coordinated to the authority’s requirements, and access for annual professional cleaning.
- Grease management
- Interceptors located outside the premises wherever the plot allows, sized for the operation and accessible for scheduled emptying by approved contractors.
- Storage
- Food and equipment held clear of the floor on racks and pallets, shelving held off walls, chemicals in separate lockable stores, chilled and frozen holding designed to temperature.
- Welfare & handwash
- A dedicated hand wash station in every preparation area. Toilets never open directly onto food areas — ventilated double-door lobbies where adjacency is unavoidable.
2
Regulators
Two Different Processes
Dubai is not the UAE
Abu Dhabi runs a
different process
Teams that succeed in Dubai routinely assume the same route applies across the Emirates. It does not, and the correction usually lands after drawings are already issued.
Dubai
- Layout reviewed by DM Food Safety, or by DDA or Trakhees depending on plot
- Design requirements set out in the Dubai Food Code
- Al Sa’fat green building system on new development
- Hotel BOH additionally shaped by DET classification standards
Abu Dhabi
- Food safety review sits with ADAFSA, with its own codes of practice
- Building permits through DMT, fire and life safety through ADCDA
- Estidama Pearl Rating applies instead of Al Sa’fat
- Sequencing differs — the most common and costliest assumption
Fire and life safety across the Emirates follows the UAE Fire and Life Safety Code of Practice, adopted by each emirate’s Civil Defence. For kitchens this drives hood suppression, duct fire rating and separation, exhaust routing and egress — coordinated with the layout, not resolved afterwards.
UAE services
Where THS adds the
most value here
01
Commercial Kitchen Design
Restaurants, hotels, banquets, institutions and central production kitchens — workflow, equipment schedule, BOQ and utility loads documented for UAE review.
Kitchen design in Dubai →02
Hotel Planning & Back-of-House
Guest and service circulation, kitchens, stewarding, laundry, stores and staff areas planned around operator standards and classification expectations.
Hotel design consultant →03
Cloud & Central Kitchen Design
Multi-brand delivery kitchens and central production units — segregation between brands, dispatch flow, cold chain and throughput capacity.
Cloud kitchen design →What UAE clients ask before appointing THS.
Straight answers, including about the things we do not do.
Can THS submit drawings to Dubai Municipality directly?
No. Submissions to Dubai Municipality, DDA, Trakhees or ADAFSA must be made by a consultant registered in the UAE. THS produces the design and documentation; your appointed local consultant or contractor stamps and submits it, and we support the technical queries that come back during review.
Does THS have a UAE office?
Not at present. We work on UAE projects from India, alongside your local consultant, contractor and operator. For most design and documentation scopes this works well and costs considerably less than appointing a full local specialist consultancy.
Which emirates do you work across?
Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah primarily, and the northern emirates on request. Because the approving authority and food safety regulator differ by emirate and even by plot, we confirm the route before design begins.
What do you need to start?
A site or shell plan, the affection plan or plot details, menu direction and expected covers, the operating model, and the operator or brand standards if a hotel group is involved. That is enough for a first planning discussion.
How do you handle time zones and site coordination?
India and the UAE are ninety minutes apart, so working hours overlap almost entirely. Reviews run over video with drawings shared in advance, and site visits are scheduled at the milestones that justify them.
Do you work on renovations and existing operations?
Yes. Existing kitchens with flow, capacity, ventilation or compliance problems are a large part of the work — usually starting with an operational review before any drawing is produced.
Planning a project in Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Sharjah?
Send the site plan, menu direction or operational brief. We will tell you which approval route applies and what the design needs to resolve first — before you commit budget or drawings.
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