DAMMAM: Imagine arriving at a dinner in a mysterious location, sitting down with people you have never met and being served a meal you did not choose.

That is the premise behind Ciwi, a Khobar-based dining experience that is part restaurant, part social gathering and part culinary surprise.

Khobar-based Manaf Albuainain, founder of Ciwi’s dining experience, asks diners to leave the conventional restaurant experience at the door.  

“We don't want people to think of this place as a restaurant. We really want people to feel like they're in a living room,” he tells Arab News.

The concept of Ciwi, now entering its third month, combines all of the above with a dash of elegance. The novel concept is simple: Fill out a brief form online, choose a slot on an available date, and digitally pay the SR 300 ($79)fee.

“I grew up in Khobar and went to college in the US where I studied entrepreneurship. And even in college, I would cook for friends all the time. I love just gathering everyone, cooking, and having a good time,” he adds.

“I've always wanted to start a business, and I really thought I'd understand the food and beverage space in particular; I always found it interesting,” he says.

After graduation, he became a man in finance for about six years before completely shifting gears.

“During COVID, I just got really fed-up with my desk job. I really loved the company, it was remote and in-office, but it got repetitive, right? I'm not the type that likes to sit in an office all day.”

Knowing what to do next with his life was easy: he returned to what he loved.

“So after working for such a long time, it just hit me that, okay, will I be doing this for the rest of my life? Then I came to a realization that I probably would be better off making something that I like and enjoy, and this is getting people together, and cooking, and the whole shebang, really.”

He founded a pizzeria, Wood Pizza, in 2020 and that changed everything.

“Because it was COVID, we had most of the equipment (for the pizzeria) arrive, and we couldn't really rent an actual space, so we just stored everything here. And we turned the oven on. And little did we know that we had people coming in, and we were like, ‘you know what? This is our new spot.’”

“The location picked us, because it was originally a storage space that turned into a full-fledged pizzeria; it was pretty cool.”

The specific spot at Ciwi, while near Wood Pizza, is deliberately kept off the website.

The exact location will be emailed to you upon signing up. All you need to know is that it is in Al-Nahdah area–strategically situated between Dammam and Khobar.

That somewhat cryptic GPS coordinates is by design.

“It's 100 percent part of it. I don't think it would work if it wasn't. We wanted to be in an isolated place in Khobar, a little far from everywhere. We don't want traffic to just walk in and out. It's like: if you know, you know.”

The name Ciwi itself is unique.

“It's an abbreviation of Cooking With Intention—but the middle ‘i’ is silent, because who puts the ‘k’ in knife? We're feeling rebellious. We want to bend the rules,” he says.

How are we meant to pronounce it?

“It's up to you. You can call it either Kiwi or Seewi, there are no rules. I call it both. But I definitely wanted two eyes to be in the title, because my family name is Albuainain (which takes its root from ‘two eyes’ in Arabic). There are also two dots.”

He describes himself as “very into music, very into art, really enjoy both, and definitely food.”

“I did culinary school throughout college, during the summer semester—I would take summer abroad. I went to culinary school in Italy; different parts. I went to Naples for a month. I did Florence for two months. I went to culinary school in the UK for a year after opening the pizzeria,” he says.

“We’ve been working on this project for a year, and we didn't want to do a full-fledged restaurant that's ordinary—or that is like any other restaurant. We wanted to create the space where people don't feel as if they're guests,“ he says.

“We want them to get up, and enjoy the art, and see everything. Everything is transparent. The cooking area, the storage areas.”

He wrestled with the idea of having “one big table” but settled for offering two or three smaller tables instead.

“Have people be comfortably uncomfortable—this is how we like to frame it,” he adds. “Imagine going around in Khobar to any other restaurant. You're going to go out with your friend that you've known for years. You don't have anything new to talk about because you probably talked about it on the way there. You're just going to sit and look at the menu and decide what you are going to order. And that's just any other place, and we really want it to be different.”

“We want to be part of the community. We want the community to mingle. We want to get to know them.”

“When we make a menu, we don't want to put normal things that you ordinarily order. We put some curveballs, like the anchovies in August’s menu.”

He loves to interact with the diners, especially if the food item before them is something they tried for the very first time.

“I really like the idea of streamlining the menu and not having too many choices when you come in—you take away that back-and-forth.”

While the curated plates are made with care, he wants to give every person at Ciwi a satisfying taste, not a feast.

“We don't want people to leave here absolutely full. We try to hit an 80 percent full rate, where you are light and comfortable, and enjoyed the experience—of the interior, the music, ambiance, and service, and socializing, and tasting new things.”

Mostly, people come in twos. Not afraid to dine solo, he would have dined at Ciwi if he did not create it.

“I'm an outgoing person. I'm not going to have someone else hold me back if I want to do something; I'm out,” he says.

He is, in essence, creating the sort of communal and local experience he wanted when he was young. And even now.

During the dinner, he will casually float around the tables, smoothly slipping in a question or a few about the evening unfolding.

“I like to get to meet new people and learn new things from people. We want you to be happy, and when we see people happy, we're really happy.”

Chef Daniel Nicholas, who hails from Sydney, Australia, helped to launch Ciwi menus and prepared the dishes for the first two iterations.

He opted to prepare his favorites with a twist and chose not to prepare Saudi dishes, as he is currently being introduced to them after only being in the Kingdom for under two years.

“It's been great,” Chef Nicholas tells Arab News after a recent service. “Absolutely love what Manaf is trying to do and I am super appreciative; he's put together a really lovely setting, very cozy. It's a very cool and casual time, so it's been really nice.”

The first month, in July, they served a Mediterranean and Asian menu. In August, it was Spanish, both under Chef Dan’s leadership.

This month, it will have a Taste of Italy flavoring with another chef at the helm. On Sept. 3, reservations opened up once again.

“Stay tuned,” Albuainain concludes with a playful laugh.