CZN Burak reopens: What has changed since Dubai cafe was closed for Covid-19 breaches?

Just a few days immediately after it had been announced that popular Dubai restaurant CZN Burak was closed for breaking Covid-19 safety regulations, the restaurant is ready to go again.

Run by Turkish superstar chef Burak Ozdemir, the restaurant was closed carrying out a place check by the Department of Economic Development, together with Dubai Tourism and Dubai Municipality, on Friday.

However, it was back ready to go by Sunday, just with time for Valentine’s Day.

The restaurant closure occurred due to the overwhelming welcome CZN Burak provides received in Dubai which, unfortunately, a representative tells The National, had “resulted in many guests attempting to visit and meet chef Burak, who's a favorite and much-loved figure”.

The news headlines is hardly surprising. With his trademark smile and theatrical preparing displays, Burak offers amassed a following of more than 20.6 million on Instagram alone - a lot of whom happen to be also wanting to meet the chef personally, and it displays. In December, its beginning month, the restaurant served more than 45,000 friends, including stars like Cristiano Ronaldo.

“It has been a lttle bit challenging for the cafe to regulate the crowds who found greet and encounter him personally," the representative says.

This is, in part, as a result of restaurant's insufficient a reservation system. Pair this using its prime location in Downtown Dubai, and the staff's theatrical method of preparing certain meals at the table, which has a tendency to get a gathering.

Following the restaurant's closure, it released that it was likely to “take this as an possibility to revise [safety] actions and improve them to provide an improved and safer encounter for our customers and our society, adhering to the local regulations”.

Many of these measures add a deep cleaning of the location and further staff training, management at the cafe told The National throughout a check out on Wednesday. Consistent with Dubai's Covid-19 regulations, the cafe had currently reduced the quantity of seats inside and outside the location and features been conducting every week PCR testing on staff.

Staff have also been instructed to make certain that diners remain seated during the complete dining encounter. If they have to leave their desk to use the washroom, they'll be reminded to use their masks.

On the restaurant's initially day since reopening, The National found tables spaced out, stickers requesting social distancing placed outside the restaurant for all those queuing to enter, and glass partitions between tables. The area seems busy, partly because of the high level of staff, who are wearing deal with masks and gloves. Guests going to the washrooms happen to be, in fact, being reminded to use their face masks.

The biggest change seems to be around meeting chef Burak himself. The cafe is working on a system to prevent crowding that may occur when excited admirers gather to take photos of the famous chef, who's known to pop in to the restaurant on a regular basis to greet diners.

During our visit, all of us were instead asked if we want a picture with Burak. Friends who do are led into another, empty portion of the cafe and politely asked to hold back. We queue as another family group finish taking their photographs with the chef. When it's our switch, we are resulted in greet the chef.

“We recognize that Chef Burak represents an attracting component, so we will work on a program to allow our buyers to meet him within an orderly and safe and sound method, which we will depth later on once finalised,” the representative says.