What’s On has video of the Dubai skyline – Burj Khalifa, Burj Al Arab, Dubai Mall – made out of food, created by artist Paul Baker, for Dubai Food Festival.


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To celebrate the launch of the campaign highlighting next year’s Duibai Food Festival, Dubai Tourism has commissioned a special art installation depicting the emirate’s skyline and landmarks.

Using ingredients ranging from courgettes to chocolate, cobs to cake, the purpose behind the project was to highlight the ‘city’s growing profile as a gastronomy destination’.

Put together by UK-based food artists Paul Baker and a team of six model makers over a period of three weeks, it will be displayed in London before being shipped to Dubai ahead of the month-long food festival in February.

“To be asked to create a foodscape model of Dubai was an honour and a huge challenge,” the creator said. “We had to incorporate as many landmark buildings and geological features as possible, all made from food that wouldn’t deteriorate. We needed to find produce and food stuffs that not only wouldn’t wilt, smell or decompose but could actually look like buildings.

“After all, fresh produce is not normally square or rectangular in form. The challenge was to design and construct interesting and recognisable buildings from organic-looking shapes.”

In total 90 cobs were used alone in the creation of Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building being described as ‘the lynchpin of the whole project’.

Another iconic structure, the Burj Al Arab, was made using tubular pasta, lasagne, tortilla wraps, cheese biscuits, diced barbecue chicken, dried herbs and shortbread biscuits, while the Dubai World Trade Centre is made of milk and white chocolate bars. Emirates Towers was made mostly out of bread, with the Palm’s fronds each a French baguette.

There is a distinctly vegetable theme to the Dubai Mall, with green peppers, French beans, broad beans, leeks, courgettes and baby courgettes all helping create the building. Even the sand that surrounds the main structures is edible.