This Dubai Restaurant Is Going To Be Led By An AI Chef Named "Aiman"

NDTV

16-07-2025

In September this year, downtown Dubai is set to welcome WOOHOO, a trailblazing AI-powered restaurant. It has made headlines already for being the world's first restaurant to be fully conceptualised by an artificial intelligence chef. This unique kitchen leader has been named Aiman (a combination of the words "AI" and "man"). While human chefs go through rigorous training, Aiman has been put through rigorous culinary programming focused on global cuisines, food science, and molecular gastronomy. To be clear, Aiman is not actually going to wield a pan or saute ingredients. Rather, its job is to come up with ideas, deconstruct dishes into data points, and craft recipes that push boundaries. Human chefs handle the execution, but Aiman writes the playbook.
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Who (Or What) Is Chef Aiman?
Chef Aiman is an AI-powered culinary intelligence system created by Gastronaut, a tech-food company. It's designed to be like a chef's mind, not hands. It will offer original dish ideas, techniques, and plating concepts based on a deep training in food data. Chef Aiman already has a social media page. Its Instagram bio reads, "The world's first and only AI chef." The page is full of human-like posts and reels. The AI avatar of this chef shares recipes, snippets from 'podcast' appearances and other updates.
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A post shared by CHEF AIMAN (@aiman.chef)
How Does Chef Aiman Work?
Chef Aiman uses machine learning to analyse and remix flavour profiles, ingredients, cooking methods, and plating aesthetics. As per its developers, Aiman divides food into categories like sweetness, acidity, umami, texture, and temperature, and reconstructs them into novel recipes. Human chefs execute its vision, taste-test, and give feedback, refining Aiman's understanding in real time. Dubai-based celebrity chef Reif Othman leads the human kitchen team. His crew prepares dishes suggested by Aiman and provides essential human insight.
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More About The World's First Restaurant With An AI Chef
WOOHOO is slated to open at a location not far from the iconic Burj Khalifa in Dubai. The space is envisioned as a high-tech dining destination with a cyberpunk vibe. AI-assisted cocktail pairings are also expected. AI will be used for the ambience and service, too.
Can An AI Chef Truly Help Restaurants?
The goal here is to combine human intuition with algorithmic intelligence. "Human cooking will not be replaced, but we believe (Aiman) will elevate the ideas, creativity," said Oytun Cakir, the chief executive of hospitality company Gastronaut, as quoted by Reuters. He added that Aiman can help develop recipes that re-use ingredients often discarded by restaurants, like meat trimmings or fat. Thus, by using the full potential of each ingredient, it aims to promote zero-waste cooking. Gastronaut reportedly plans to license Aiman globally to boost its presence and use.
Dubai has long been a land of firsts. With Aiman, it seems it's all set to now it's cook up a new kind of future for gastronomy. What will this mean for human chefs and their human customers? We'll have to wait and see.