IT Restaurant — Mediterranean Chic from Ibiza and Mykonos to Riyadh

IT Restaurant Coming to Riyadh

IT Restaurant’s planned Riyadh expansion brings a dining philosophy rooted in Mediterranean lifestyle culture — chic interiors, soulful music, and exceptional cuisine — from its established locations in Ibiza and Mykonos. Known for creating destination-dining experiences where atmosphere and cuisine carry equal weight, IT Restaurant represents the lifestyle dining category that is increasingly central to Saudi Arabia’s hospitality expansion under Vision 2030.

The lifestyle dining format — where the restaurant experience is as much about ambiance, music, and social currency as culinary excellence — has proven particularly successful in the Gulf. Dubai’s dining scene is built substantially on this model, and Riyadh is now developing its own version adapted to Saudi social norms. The non-alcoholic environment creates different energy dynamics than IT Restaurant’s Mediterranean locations, but Saudi Arabia’s coffee culture and late-night social traditions provide alternative frameworks for the vibrant social dining that the brand cultivates.

The Lifestyle Dining Category in Saudi Arabia

Lifestyle dining has emerged as one of the fastest-growing segments in the Saudi F&B landscape, driven by a young population with high disposable income and strong social media engagement. The broader Saudi F&B market reached USD 30.12 billion in 2025 and is projected to grow at 8.11% CAGR to USD 48.06 billion by 2031. Within this expansion, the cafes and bars segment — which captures many lifestyle dining concepts — is growing at an even faster 11.82% CAGR through 2031, reflecting consumer demand for social dining environments that extend beyond traditional meal occasions.

The entertainment-dining integration trend provides additional tailwinds for lifestyle concepts. Saudi Arabia’s entertainment sector transformation began with the establishment of the General Authority for Entertainment in May 2016 by royal decree, with over $2 billion invested. The Kingdom hosted its first public live music concert in over 25 years in May 2017 and opened its first new movie theater in 35 years in April 2018. Riyadh Season — first held in 2019 — has created a culture of entertainment-integrated social experiences that lifestyle restaurants naturally complement. IT Restaurant’s emphasis on curated music and theatrical atmosphere aligns perfectly with this cultural shift.

The Boulevard model demonstrates how lifestyle dining operates within entertainment districts. Boulevard City features 350 restaurants across 24 sub-zones, with 40 restaurants and cafes in the Boulevard Flowers zone alone. The Boulevard Food Festival “turns Sunday nights into tasting tours with chef specials, pop-ups and live cooking stations,” creating the kind of event-driven dining experience that IT Restaurant’s Ibiza and Mykonos locations excel at. This entertainment-dining synthesis defines the Saudi market that IT Restaurant is entering.

Immersive Technology and Atmosphere Amplification

For The Mukaab’s dining program, IT Restaurant’s format offers insights into how atmosphere-driven dining translates to immersive environments. The restaurant’s emphasis on curated music, dramatic lighting, and design-forward interiors aligns with The Mukaab’s immersive technology capabilities — but the technology layer would amplify these atmospheric elements exponentially. An IT Restaurant concept where the holographic dome shifts between Greek island sunsets, Ibiza beach scenes, and Mediterranean coastal panoramas would create a dining atmosphere beyond anything achievable through conventional interior design.

The dome’s capacity for “ever-changing environments using digital and virtual technology” — combined with a high-end audio system providing “acoustic brilliance supporting visual mediums and shows” and state-of-the-art lighting “blending artistry with practicality” — creates a technology platform perfectly suited to lifestyle dining concepts. IT Restaurant’s core competency is atmosphere creation through music, light, and design — The Mukaab’s technology infrastructure simply extends these tools to a scale and immersiveness that no conventional venue can approach.

Falcon’s Creative Group, The Mukaab’s Creative Lead Advisor, specializes in designing entertainment experiences that integrate dining. For a lifestyle concept like IT Restaurant, Falcon’s could develop a dining-entertainment hybrid where the meal, the music, the visual environment, and the social dynamic are choreographed as a unified experience rather than separate service layers. Pop-up dining concepts grew 155% between 2022 and 2023, and “more brands are leaning into immersive, story-driven concepts: light projections, music pairings, open kitchens, and design that makes guests forget about their phones.” IT Restaurant’s format is inherently aligned with this trend.

Mediterranean Cuisine Market Dynamics

The Mediterranean cuisine category occupies fertile ground in Saudi Arabia’s dining hierarchy. Between Tatel’s Spanish approach at Diriyah, Amazonico’s Latin American-Mediterranean fusion, and the numerous Italian concepts across Riyadh’s developments — Cova at Diriyah, Il Baretto (Michelin selected) at KAFD, Dolce & Gabbana Diriyah, Cipriani Dolci (planned) — Mediterranean dining has proven its commercial viability across price points and contexts.

IT Restaurant adds a specifically resort-inspired dimension — evoking Ibiza and Mykonos in a climate-controlled interior — that could resonate strongly with Saudi consumers who travel frequently to Mediterranean holiday destinations. The Vision 2030 tourism strategy includes expansion of Saudi Arabia’s own tourism offerings, but Mediterranean travel remains deeply embedded in Gulf culture. A restaurant that recreates the ambiance of a Mykonos evening without requiring the flight creates a compelling proposition for Riyadh’s social dining market.

The halal compatibility of Mediterranean cuisine strengthens the commercial model. Olive oil, fresh vegetables, seafood, grilled meats, herbs, and citrus form the foundation of Mediterranean cooking — ingredients that translate seamlessly to halal requirements. Unlike some European cuisines that rely on pork products or wine-based preparations, Mediterranean cuisine’s ingredient foundation requires minimal adaptation for the Saudi market. This operational advantage, combined with the cuisine’s universal appeal, positions Mediterranean concepts like IT Restaurant for strong market reception.

Target Audience and Demand Architecture

The Mukaab’s 9,000 planned hotel rooms and visitor-focused programming create a natural audience for lifestyle dining concepts. Hotel guests seeking evening entertainment, tourists exploring the immersive dome, and residents of the 104,000 residential units looking for social dining options all represent potential customers for an IT Restaurant-style concept. The spiral tower’s multi-level dining program could position lifestyle restaurants at social-gathering elevations distinct from the quiet fine dining and casual everyday concepts at other levels.

Saudi Arabia’s late-night dining culture provides a distinctive market advantage for lifestyle concepts. Since alcohol is not available, coffee serves as the social beverage of choice, and the Saudi coffee revolution has produced 3,550 branded coffee shops with some operating 24 hours. “Gatherings once held in homes or traditional majlis now occur in bustling cafes,” and cafes double as “workspaces, meeting points, and cultural hotspots” hosting “poetry readings, art exhibitions, business meetings, book launches, and live music.” IT Restaurant’s format — which extends the dining occasion through atmosphere and entertainment rather than alcohol — is naturally suited to this late-night social culture.

The cloud kitchen and delivery revolution intersects with lifestyle dining in complex ways. While the IT Restaurant experience depends fundamentally on atmosphere — something that cannot be delivered — the food component can be adapted for delivery through platforms serving the broader New Murabba development. With the Saudi food delivery market projected to reach USD 19.45 billion by 2031 and 35% of consumers ordering weekly, a delivery extension of IT Restaurant’s Mediterranean menu could generate incremental revenue without cannibalizing the experience-driven dine-in business.

Competitive Positioning and Location Strategy

The competitive landscape for lifestyle dining in Riyadh is evolving rapidly. Diriyah’s Bujairi Terrace hosts Assouline with a flagship restaurant and piano lounge, creating a lifestyle dining experience rooted in literary and cultural luxury. Flamingo Room at Diriyah offers Mediterranean-Arabic fusion in a lifestyle format. KAFD’s Kimpton hotel features The Vinyl Ember (American grill with open-fire cooking) and Botanica (all-day restaurant), blending hotel lifestyle dining with the district’s commercial energy. Via Riyadh’s Stella Sky Lounge provides “open-air terrace, panoramic views, entertainment, and shisha” — a direct lifestyle dining competitor.

IT Restaurant’s differentiation lies in its specific Mediterranean resort identity — the Ibiza and Mykonos association creates a brand positioning distinct from Arabian-fusion (Flamingo Room), American grill (Vinyl Ember), or general lifestyle (Stella Sky Lounge) concepts. For The Mukaab, this specificity is valuable — restaurant brands with clear, differentiated identities are easier for visitors to discover and remember within a development of The Mukaab’s enormous scale.

The 980,000 square meters of retail space across New Murabba — and the mega-project F&B pipeline adding Avenues Riyadh (due 2026), Diriyah Square (due 2027), and 2.2 million square meters total by 2028 — create both opportunity and competition for lifestyle dining locations. IT Restaurant must evaluate The Mukaab against these alternatives, each offering different advantages: Avenues Riyadh’s retail traffic, Diriyah Square’s heritage context, or The Mukaab’s immersive technology environment. The development that offers the most compelling atmosphere-amplification proposition — which is unambiguously The Mukaab — should hold the strongest appeal for a brand whose entire identity is built on atmosphere.

Sustainability and Social Impact

The sustainable dining movement affects lifestyle dining concepts as much as fine dining establishments. With 68% of MENA diners preferring sustainable restaurants, IT Restaurant’s Mediterranean cuisine has inherent sustainability advantages — the Mediterranean diet is widely recognized as one of the most environmentally sustainable dietary patterns, emphasizing plants, whole grains, and seafood over intensive animal agriculture.

The wellness dining trend also intersects with Mediterranean lifestyle concepts. Menu trends show “blending wellness-focused dining and nostalgic comfort foods,” and Gen-Z’s “love of little treats” fuels creative artisan approaches that Mediterranean cuisine naturally accommodates. Low-calorie menus, gluten-free options, and the incorporation of superfoods like za’atar, dates, and olive oil position Mediterranean lifestyle dining at the intersection of health consciousness and indulgence — a combination that resonates with Saudi Arabia’s increasingly wellness-aware consumer base.

The Mukaab’s New Murabba development emphasizes sustainability through “green areas, walking and cycling paths,” and a “15-minute city” design where most daily needs are met within walking distance. IT Restaurant operating within this framework — serving locally sourced Mediterranean cuisine in an energy-efficient immersive environment powered by the development’s sustainability infrastructure — could demonstrate that lifestyle dining and environmental responsibility are complementary rather than contradictory objectives.

Development Timeline and Investment Context

The New Murabba development represents an estimated $50 billion investment spanning 19 million square meters with over 25 million square meters of floor area. The masterplan, developed by AtkinsRealis, envisions a “15-minute city” where most living, working, and entertainment needs are accessible within walking distance. Excavation reached 86% completion as of October 2024, with over 10 million cubic meters of earth moved. Construction began in October 2024, with Phase 1 targeting completion by the 2030 Expo in Riyadh and the full project spanning four phases through 2040.

The development’s sustainability credentials include green areas, walking and cycling paths, and a community-focused design that integrates residential living with commercial and entertainment spaces. A technology and design university, a museum, a multipurpose immersive theatre, and a stadium are among the over 80 entertainment and culture venues planned. The total community facilities span 1.8 million square meters, with 620,000 square meters of leisure assets providing the programming capacity that restaurant concepts depend on for destination traffic.

The Riyadh hotel pipeline provides additional context for dining demand projections. At least 46 high-end hotel projects totaling 18,358 keys are under development across the city, including 28 five-star and 18 four-star properties representing at least US$3.8 billion in hotel development investment. Q1 2026 openings include DoubleTree by Hilton Madinah Gate, Sofitel Riyadh, SLS The Red Sea, and Crowne Plaza Al Jubail. Key hotel brands expanding in Riyadh include Radisson Blu (3 hotels), InterContinental (2), Holiday Inn (2), Hotel Indigo (2), Novotel (2), Hilton (2), and Rosewood (2), alongside the Regent Riyadh KAFD and Kimpton Riyadh. This hospitality expansion creates the transient dining demand that premium restaurants require beyond resident and worker populations.

Saudi Arabia’s food manufacturing sector has grown to over 1,900 food factories with investments exceeding SAR 88 billion, providing the domestic supply chain infrastructure that supports premium dining operations. The SFDA conducts over 20,000 inspections annually and enforces penalties up to SAR 500,000 for non-compliant delivery firms, ensuring food safety standards that international restaurant brands require. The Future Hospitality Summit (FHS) 2026 at the Mandarin Oriental Al Faisaliah in Riyadh, scheduled for April 20-22, 2026, provides a platform for restaurant deal-making — FHS 2025 generated US$1.6 billion in business opportunities with 11 major signings.