Bakery Delivery to DIFC: Planning Food for a Client Meeting

Farah has no shop, counter or kitchen in DIFC. We bake everything to order in one kitchen in Nadd Hessa, Dubai Silicon Oasis, and deliver it across the city, the Dubai International Financial Centre included. This page covers one job: food for a client meeting or presentation in the financial district, ordered far enough ahead that it is waiting when your guests sit down.

For an everyday team breakfast, our office breakfast catering guide covers the planning. This page is for the single meeting with a date, a room and outside guests.

Where the food comes from, and what that means in DIFC

DIFC is Dubai's financial district: office towers full of banks, law firms and the meetings between them. Every order leaves our Dubai Silicon Oasis kitchen, and one of our drivers brings it to your building.

• The rules are the same as anywhere in Dubai. Delivery is a flat 20 AED, and free when the bag comes to 150 AED or more before any discount code. A DIFC address gets the same four windows and the same fee as every other part of the city.
• The order comes before the bake. Everything is baked to order for the day it is due, so meeting food is ordered in advance, never on the morning itself.
• Collection is by arrangement only. There is no pickup option at checkout; collecting from Silicon Oasis has to be arranged with us over WhatsApp first, as our delivery page explains.

Work backwards from the meeting date

Checkout has no calendar. It offers four fixed windows, all counted from the day you place the order:

• tomorrow, 7–10 am
• tomorrow, 3–6 pm
• the day after tomorrow, 7–10 am
• next Saturday, 9 am–12 pm

Nothing is delivered on the day you order. The earliest window is preselected, so check which one is ticked before you pay.

For a weekday meeting, the furthest ahead you can order is two days: order on Monday for Wednesday morning, or on Tuesday for Wednesday morning or afternoon. On Monday, a Thursday meeting is still out of reach, because Thursday is not yet one of the windows. So set a diary reminder two days before the meeting, with the day before as your fallback.

A morning meeting that starts at 10 or later

Choose the 7–10 am window on the meeting day. Each window is three hours wide and the order can arrive at any point inside it, so a 10:30 start leaves room for reception and setting the table.

A meeting that starts before 10

A 9 am start falls inside the morning window, so the food may arrive after your guests. Delivery the afternoon before is possible, but sandwiches and croissants are at their best on the day they arrive. Serve the food at the first break instead, or send the details through our events form, say when people arrive, and we will tell you what we can do.

A meeting that runs through lunch

Take the morning window and put the sandwiches in the fridge on arrival. Two of our sandwiches are built to wait until lunch if kept cold.

An afternoon session

The 3–6 pm window only exists for tomorrow, and a 3 pm start falls inside it, so the food could reach the lobby after the session has begun. A morning window on the meeting day is usually safer: build the order around what waits at room temperature, such as a covered cake loaf, rather than sandwiches that would spend most of the day in a fridge. The afternoon window suits a session that starts after six.

Sandwiches on bread we bake ourselves

Every sandwich is built on one of our own breads, and for a meeting the bread matters more than the filling, as our guide to sandwich breads explains.

For anything that will wait in a fridge, choose the Ciabatta Turkey & Cheese Sandwich at 12 AED, the one in the photograph, or the Focaccia Smoked Turkey Sandwich at 17 AED. The ciabatta's open crumb and the olive oil in the focaccia slow the filling's moisture on its way into the bread, so kept cold, both are much the same sandwich at lunch as on arrival. Our other four sandwiches are 12 AED each; the white bread and brioche ones are for eating soon after they arrive, so keep them for a table served straight away.

Two habits keep them right:

• Into the fridge on arrival. Standard food-safety guidance is no more than two hours out of the fridge in total, or one hour above 32°C, and that clock includes any time the bag spends at a reception desk.
• Out of the fridge ten to fifteen minutes before eating. Cold mutes the flavour of the bread and firms the crumb; a few minutes on the side bring both back. Time it to the break in the agenda.

Check the guest list before you choose. Every sandwich contains meat: chicken, turkey or ham. The descriptions do not say what animal the ham comes from or how the meat is sourced, and nothing in our shop is labelled vegetarian. When you confirm the meeting, ask the client's office about food their people do not eat, and if it matters, ask us before you order.

Pastries for a morning session

For a meeting that starts with coffee, a plate of croissants needs no cutlery. A plain Croissant is 14 AED and a Chocolate Croissant 16 AED. The Almond Cream Croissant at 18 AED is topped with toasted almonds and the Pistachio Croissant at 19 AED is filled with pistachio paste; both contain nuts, so give them their own labelled plate. The full range is in our croissant collection.

A good croissant sheds flakes, as our croissant guide explains, so in a room with printed decks and laptops, set the plate on a side table with napkins. Until people arrive, keep them in paper, not a sealed plastic box, which traps moisture and turns the crust leathery.

For a session that runs all morning, add a Marble Cake Loaf at 35 AED, vanilla and chocolate swirled through one loaf. Cut it at the table rather than beforehand: an uncut loaf covers a guest who was not on the list, and the cut face is the part that dries first, as our marble cake guide explains. We do not sell coffee, tea or any other drinks, so arrange those separately.

Our kitchen handles wheat, gluten, eggs, dairy, nuts, peanuts, soy, sesame and seeds, and we cannot guarantee that any item is free from traces of these. If anyone at the meeting has an allergy or intolerance, tell us before you order and we will say honestly whether we can serve them safely.

Getting the delivery past reception

In a large office building, a delivery often stops at a reception or security desk rather than coming up to your floor. Checkout has the fields for that handover:

1. Tick "Delivering to a company / business?" and enter the company name as the reception desk knows it.
2. Put the receiver's name in the delivery details, and the building name and floor in the address. If someone else will come down for it, add their name in the notes for the baker.
3. Give a phone number that person will answer. That field is there for delivery updates.
4. Drop the map pin on the entrance a driver can use. If your building takes deliveries at a service entrance or loading bay rather than the main lobby, pin that. The order cannot go through without a pin.
5. Register the delivery with security if your building asks for it, under your company's name, for the window you chose.

Then make sure someone is there. Our delivery page is clear that someone needs to receive fresh food: we cannot replace items left uncollected or unrefrigerated. Sandwiches waiting two hours at a lobby desk are exactly that case, so the person named on the order should know the window and be free to go down.

Paying with a company card

Checkout works as a guest, with no account needed; use the email address that should receive the order confirmation.

Payment is through PayPal only. On PayPal's page you can pay with a credit or debit card without a PayPal account, so a company card works. Prices are shown in AED and settled in US dollars, and checkout shows the dollar amount before you pay; note both figures for the expense claim. Cash on delivery is not available.

An example: a 10:30 presentation for six

Say the meeting is on a Wednesday at 10:30, with six people and a working lunch afterwards.

• When to order: on Monday, choosing the day-after-tomorrow window, 7–10 am on Wednesday. If Monday slips, order on Tuesday and choose tomorrow's morning window.
• For arrival: four Croissants at 14 AED and two Almond Cream Croissants at 18 AED, the almond ones on their own plate. That is 92 AED.
• For lunch: three Ciabatta Turkey & Cheese Sandwiches at 12 AED and three Focaccia Smoked Turkey Sandwiches at 17 AED, into the fridge on arrival and out fifteen minutes before lunch. That is 87 AED.

The bag comes to 179 AED, so delivery is free; if a price has moved, the bag shows the new total. There is no minimum order, and a smaller meeting simply pays the 20 AED fee.

When a shop order is not enough

The shop suits a meeting your own team can lay out. For food already on the table when the first guest walks in, a start earlier than the morning window can promise, or a larger room, use the Bring Farah to your event form: give the company, the meeting date, the number of guests, the building and floor, and when the first guest is due. We reply within one working day and will tell you what is possible. Our guide to fresh bread delivery in Dubai covers the windows and the fee in more detail.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Farah Bakery in DIFC?

No. We have no shop, counter or kitchen in DIFC. Everything is baked to order in our one kitchen in Nadd Hessa, Dubai Silicon Oasis, and delivered to offices and homes across Dubai, the financial district included. Collection from the kitchen is possible only by arrangement over WhatsApp.

How much does delivery to DIFC cost?

The same as anywhere else in Dubai: a flat 20 AED when the bag is under 150 AED, and free at 150 AED or more. The threshold counts the items before any discount code is applied, and there is no minimum order.

Our meeting starts at 9 am. Will a morning delivery arrive in time?

Not reliably. The morning window runs from 7 to 10 am, and the order can arrive at any point inside it. For a 9 am start, serve the food at the first break, or use our events form and tell us when your guests arrive.

Can I pay with a company card?

Yes. Payment is through PayPal, and on PayPal's page you can pay with a credit or debit card without a PayPal account. Prices are shown in AED and charged in US dollars, so note the dollar amount checkout shows for your expense claim.

Our building's reception will not hold food for long. What should we do?

Tick the company box at checkout, add the company name and your floor, and name the person who will take the order in. That person should know the three-hour window and be free to come down, because fresh items left uncollected or unrefrigerated cannot be replaced.

Order for your meeting

Pick the meeting date, count back to the window, then build the bag: sandwiches from our sandwich collection, a plate from our croissants, and anything else from the shop. Choose the window at checkout, tick the company box, and we will bake the order for the day it is due.