Weekend with Dina Macki: ‘Sometimes I’ll wake up and really crave a can of tuna’
The Omani-British chef on her unusual breakfast choices, games nights with friends and her favourite restaurants
Dina Macki, 32, is an Omani-British chef, food writer and presenter who grew up in Portsmouth and now splits her time between Muscat, Oman and south London.
She has appeared on BBC1’s Saturday Kitchen and has presented for brands including Waitrose and Tesco.
Her debut cookbook Bahari: Recipes from an Omani Kitchen and Beyond was published in 2024 after winning the Jane Grigson Trust Sous Chef Award for new food and drink writers in 2023.
In 2025, she opened the Omani-Portuguese restaurant Mesa, based in Muscat.
What gets you into weekend mode?
I’m in a phase of life where I don’t have the luxury to turn off. I always need to be on it. I just need to keep moving and keep doing.
And if you could have a weekend off?
On my birthday weekend, I went to my favourite hotel in Muscat, which is Jumeirah. I chilled there and read and lay in the pool. If the weather’s good in Oman you just want to be outdoors. It’s great for camping and for going up into the mountains. We’re so lucky to have such a big coastline. At the moment it’s whale shark season, so I might take a boat trip to go see the whale sharks and swim with them.
Do you have a go-to weekend breakfast?
I’m a weird person — I love leftovers for breakfast, especially rice, so I tend to have rice and a fried egg with some Omani lime pickle and fried cabbage.
My grandmother’s name in Swahili was Bibi and she would make us omelettes filled with all of the random leftover veg she had in the fridge. We grew up calling it a Bibi omelette.
There might be a weekend where I’m craving English pancakes and I will just have that with sugar and lemon, but then sometimes I’ll wake up and really crave a can of tinned tuna.
Staying in on Saturday night or going out?
Staying in. If I am going out, I am just having an early dinner or maybe games night with friends. There’s this game they play in Oman called Jackaroo. It’s actually a bit like Ludo and they’re obsessed with it here. I also love Articulate — such a good game. It will make you hate your own partner that you’re working with.
What other games do you like?
I keep trying to get my husband to go bowling with me and he won’t. I don’t know how to make this happen.
Why won’t he go bowling?
He thinks it’s for losers. I need to rally other people because I’m desperate to go.
What would be your ideal weekend in London?
You’d find me hopping from restaurant to restaurant seeing what I can try. I’ll just be eating or shopping — that’s literally it.
Any favourite spots?
I really love a place called Logma. It’s run by a lovely Iranian and Iraqi couple who used to do supper clubs. Now they have this cute, tiny bistro in Hackney and do the best sandwiches — especially the kubba sandwich and the aubergine version. Every Wednesday they do a supper club there and I just love those two cuisines coming together. It’s so beautiful.
I also got into the habit of going to Common Breads. I’m not usually a bread person but it’s a Lebanese-style bakery literally outside Victoria station and has some of the best fillings in sandwiches. They make a traditional Lebanese bread called kaak and it looks like a little handbag that they fill with lots of different fillings.
Tell us about your restaurants.
Mesa in Muscat opened in December 2025. I was originally consulting on it but I’m now part-owner.
I’m also working on opening a really cute fish bar on the Corniche. It’s going to be a retro little fish bar. In Muscat we don’t have a massive or interesting dining scene, so it’s been my mission to change that.
You’ve previously called yourself a “reluctant chef”.
I still am. You should see me in the kitchen. My chefs get so mad. I’ll start something, leave it and then let them finish it off. I’ve come to learn I don’t enjoy the process of things — I like the final thing. I love seeing people interact with the food or the space.
I got into cooking not because I liked it, but because I realised I liked feeding people and I liked how it just taught me so much about myself and gave me an identity.
