Entrepreneur Arva Ahmed reflects on her unconventional path toward building a Dubai-based business around less-marketed aspects of UAE cities. Through Frying Pan Adventures, one of the city’s most respected food guides, Ahmed turns our attention to the bakeries, neighbourhood restaurants, and food vendors that keep residents fed. Beyond being life-sustaining, food delivers the scents and flavours that hold entire worlds and histories. Food, Ahmed reminds us, brings us into contact with the people who keep a city moving. Drawing from her writings, YouTube channel, and life-sustaining, food delivers the scents and flavours that hold entire worlds and histories. Food, Ahmed reminds us, brings us into contact with the people who keep a city moving. Drawing from her writings, YouTube channel, OSN series Ditch the Silver and other television work, she pauses this evening to take stock of her trajectory, in terms of both her career and her evolving relationship with Dubai.

Off the Menu in Dubai is part of Night School 2026 | Pardon Our Progress, a five-week programme of seminars and public events led by Todd Reisz and dedicated to encounters with urbanism and history in Dubai. Learn more about the programme here.

The event is free and open to all. Please confirm your attendance by registering here.

Arva S. Ahmed is a food entrepreneur and cultural storyteller who has redefi ned how Dubai is seen—through its kitchens and neighborhoods rather than its skylines. In 2013, she founded Frying Pan Adventures, the city’s fi rst walking food tour company, pioneering an approach that uncovered Dubai’s story through the everyday dishes and the diverse cultures that shape it. Today, Ahmed is also the creator of Ditch the Silver, a YouTube channel and food docu-series recently commissioned by OSN, which spotlights the food personalities and neighbourhood subcultures that defi ne Dubai’s identity. Her voice has long been part of the region’s media landscape: a columnist for Friday magazine, co-host of the UAE’s fi rst food podcast Deep Fried, and today as the food reporter on Dubai One TV’s DXBToday. Her work has appeared internationally on Netfl ix, Travel Channel, Food Network, iTV and CNN, earning her a reputation as one of the region’s most trusted cultural interpreters. Across these platforms, Ahmed advances a powerful idea: food is not just sustenance, but the most enduring way for cities in constant motion to preserve authenticity and human connection.