Twenty-six venues. Six countries. One million guests in twelve months. And five more openings before December. AlphaMind is not slowing down.
- AlphaMind has opened 15 venues since 2025 reaching 26 across 18 brands and 9 cities
- Harbour House at Dubai Harbour is now a five-concept morning-to-midnight lifestyle destination
- CLAP has expanded to Ibiza and London while KIRA arrives in Jumeirah this November
- Mindset loyalty platform launched in May offering AED 100 dining credit on sign-up
AlphaMind Dubai hospitality’s story in 2026 is not a story about expansion for its own sake. It is a story about what happens when a group decides, in a year that tested every operator in the region, to keep building anyway. While cautious brands paused and pipelines stalled, the group behind KIRA, CLAP and Bar du Port opened four venues in 2026, announced five more before December, crossed one million guests served in twelve months and reached 26 venues across 18 brands in nine cities and six countries. The numbers are impressive. The context behind them is more so.
A former helipad on Dubai Harbour’s waterfront is now Harbour House, and it tells you everything you need to know about how AlphaMind thinks. The site was not obvious. The vision was. Five venues, all AlphaMind concepts, all with their own distinct identity, all designed to capture a different moment of the day in one connected destination. Friends stopping for a Café du Port flat white at 9am. Couples at Sutēki for an intimate Wagyu dinner at 9pm. A rooftop crowd at Iris Harbour moving from sunset drinks into late-night music at midnight. None of this is accidental. The group calls Harbour House a social playground and that description earns its keep.
The hospitality industry in the UAE has spent decades importing its best restaurant concepts from Europe, New York and Tokyo. AlphaMind has inverted that relationship. Bar du Port, which began in Lebanon, now operates across the UAE, Egypt and Qatar. CLAP, the Japanese dining institution that has been anchoring DIFC for years, has expanded to Ibiza with CLAP HOUSE and London with CLAP KA-FE. KIRA, which opened in Marsa Al Arab in 2025 and draws office workers to its Japanese-Mediterranean lunch and couples to its Hirugami evening format, will add a daytime Café KIRA in November at HUNA on Al Wasl Road in Jumeirah, a neighbourhood that has quietly become one of the city’s most interesting dining corridors.
The people drawn to these venues are as much a part of the story as the venues themselves. Designers Stefano Gabbana and Donatella Versace. Roger Federer. Tom Cruise. David Guetta. These are not names you attach to a hospitality group by writing a press release. They come when the experience is genuinely worth coming for.
The talent behind the food is worth naming too. Award-winning Chef Reif Othman, whose Japanese-inspired cooking has built a loyal following in Dubai, joined as chef partner at CLAP. Chef Pablo Fernandez, Michelin-trained with two decades in fine dining, was appointed at Iris Harbour. And Shiv Menon, named the UAE’s Michelin Sommelier of 2025, became Head of Wines across the entire portfolio. The group is not filling positions. It is assembling a team.
In March, when the regional mood was difficult and dining rooms were tentative, AlphaMind offered 30 percent off across its UAE portfolio. Not as a marketing move. As a statement about what hospitality is for. Families coming back to their regular table. Groups of friends stretching a midweek dinner into something more relaxed than it would have been without the offer. The group’s view, articulated clearly by Founder and CEO Tony Habre, is that hospitality exists to give people a reason to come together, particularly when coming together takes more effort than usual.
The Mindset loyalty platform, launched in May, converts that philosophy into a practical tool. Sign up and receive an AED 100 dining credit. Earn points on every visit across the entire portfolio. Reserve directly, spend more across multiple brands, receive experiences shaped around your habits. It is the kind of loyalty programme that makes you plan your next dinner at CLAP because you are curious what it unlocks at Bar du Port.
Five more venues before December. A pipeline extending into 2027 and beyond. Visit alphamind-group.com or follow @alphamind to stay across what is coming next. The pace is not slowing!
