Salalah’s Al Baleed Culinary Festival Returns for a Fifth Edition in November
Al Baleed Resort Salalah by Anantara has listed a month of guest-chef dinners, from a Michelin-starred Turkish chef to a Hong Kong young-chef winner, with Omani heritage dinners for the resort’s tenth anniversary.
The fifth edition of the Al Baleed Culinary Festival is scheduled to run throughout November 2026 at Al Baleed Resort Salalah by Anantara, in Oman’s southern governorate of Dhofar. The resort’s booking page describes a month of Michelin-recognised guest chefs, Omani cultural showcases and pastry events, and ties two of its Omani dinners to the celebrations for the resort’s tenth anniversary.
The first listed event is a four-hands Omani traditional dinner at Sakalan on 7 November, cooked by the resort’s own Omani chefs, Ammar Al Harthi and Khalood Abdullah Jamaan Khazana, with a traditional band playing. Frankie Wong, the 2025 winner of the MICHELIN Guide Young Chef Award, follows at Mekong on 12 November with a six-hands Asian fusion dinner alongside chefs Elvis Lai and Raveevan Kahawan, then cooks a solo menu on 13 November. The resort describes his style as French cooking with Japanese and Hong Kong influences.
Guest chefs from Izmir and Amsterdam
Marco Van Rutten, executive chef of Anantara Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky in Amsterdam, returns after taking part in 2025. The resort says he was recently named winner of the 2026 Minor Hotels Europe and Americas Chef Masters League. His Mekong dinners are listed for around 19 and 20 November, although two pages on the resort’s site differ by a day.
Osman Sezener, founder of OD Urla in Izmir, cooks a solo dinner at Mekong on 24 November. The resort says his restaurant holds both a MICHELIN Star and a MICHELIN Green Star, and describes his cooking as seasonal, farm-to-table Aegean food. The dinner is listed at OMR 40 per person, beverages excluded.
Omani chefs cook both the first and the last of the listed dinners.
On 27 November, Mohamed Al Balushi of Anantara Al Jabal Al Akhdar Resort and Reem Al Rahbi of Tivoli La Vie Muscat present a four-hands traditional Omani dinner at Sakalan. Pastry chef Nouel Catis, whom the resort credits with the viral Dubai chocolate, is booked for 25 to 28 November with an artisan Omani pastry stand at Al Mina. Who first made that bar is disputed, as our feature on Dubai chocolate explains.
How it compares with 2025
The fourth edition, in November 2025, followed the same month-long format. Platinum List reported that Jacob Jan Boerma of De Leest in the Netherlands and Christian Jürgens of Überfahrt in Germany cooked four-course dinners at Mekong, on 12 and 15 November, and the Oman Observer described both as coming from three-Michelin-starred restaurants. A Kitchen Party on 14 November brought the guest and resident chefs together at Al Mina. This year’s listing names a one-star chef and a young-chef award winner among its guests rather than cooks from three-star kitchens.
The festival also sits inside a wider push on food tourism in Dhofar. In July the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism and Oman National Transport Company (Mwasalat) launched the Omani Taste Journey, free open-top bus tours of Salalah with presentations on Omani dishes, running on 24 to 30 July and 8 to 14 August and expected to draw more than 3,000 visitors, Muscat Daily reported. The ministry said it is also working to document traditional recipes and train Omani chefs. The resort stands beside Al Baleed Archaeological Park. Our feature on the restaurants shaping the wider Gulf counts Salalah among the cities beyond Riyadh and Dubai with events of their own.
Sources & fact-check5
- Al Baleed Culinary Festival 2026 (offers page with the dated programme)Al Baleed Resort Salalah by Anantara, 2026
- Culinary Festival 2026Al Baleed Resort Salalah by Anantara, 2026
- Al Baleed Culinary Festival 2025 in Oman: gourmet dining and Michelin-starred chefs this NovemberPlatinum List, 30 October 2025
- Al Baleed Culinary Festival returns to Salalah this NovemberOman Observer, 1 November 2025
- ‘Omani Taste Journey’ showcases Dhofar’s culinary heritageMuscat Daily, 25 July 2026
Every name, number and date in this story was checked against the sources above before publication. Spotted something wrong? Tell us — we correct errors openly. See our editorial standards.
