The man behind Mariolino Beach House on Sahel’s six-month season and choosing positioning over revenue

🏖️🏠🍴 Mario Jr. Haddad was born into a Lebanese filmmaking empire — aptly called Empire international, one of the Middle East’s biggest film distributors — but when the time came to immerse himself in the family business, Haddad quickly found himself “disenchanted” by the idea of sitting behind the desk. He was passionate about cinema, yes, but he was more passionate about food — a passion born from trailing his own father, Mario Haddad, in the kitchen as he cooked his favorite pasta dish every single day.

The Lebanese war saw Jr. Haddad move to London with his brother and a nanny. There, he started cooking, inviting his friends over to feast on pastas, paellas, and risottos. He did it every day — and soon mastered the draft. Toward the tailend of the war, he moved to Lebanon and decided, at age 25, to start his own restaurant. What would become Lebanon’s first sushi restaurant was off to a shaky start: the sushi wasn’t all that great, in Haddad’s words, and so he had to pivot: operate on a trial-and-error basis, serve food at no cost for feedback, and invite everyone he could think of for taste tests.

It worked. Haddad eventually corrected course, found himself running a restaurant booked for lunch and dinner weeks in advance, made money back in the first 13 months, and learned a lesson that would shape his entire career to come: that it wasn’t just food that drove Mario Jr. Haddad, it was hosting people and cooking for them.

That is the ethos Jr. Haddad carried over to Egypt’s North Coast when Mariolino Beach House set up shop on the sandy coasts of Ramla by Marakez earlier this summer. A hospitality brand built around Mediterranean culture and what Jr. Haddad calls “the art of gathering,” the Beach House would prove itself one of the season’s most talked about — and refreshingly authentic — additions, with 18 boutique rooms, more dining experiences than one can savor in just one stay, and a slew of moments built around community.

EnterpriseAM caught up with Mario Jr. Haddad to talk about all things food, Mariolino, and Sahel. Edited excerpts from our conversation:

EnterpriseAM: You’ve operated Mariolino across different countries and coasts — Lebanon, Turkey, and now Egypt. What’s the one thing you would say makes Mariolino what it is, regardless of where it is on the map?

Mario Jr. Haddad: The concept itself. Mariolino started in Batroun as a place where it was a labor of love. I had moved to Batroun — a little coastal town in the North — from Beirut because of Covid. The country was at a standstill — financial meltdown, Covid, the politics. So, I wanted to open a shack where I just served family style, and I emphasize on the family style because that’s the essence of the brand. Everything is served in large plates. A lot of people tell us, “Your portions are huge,” because that’s how it’s meant to be: it’s a sharing concept. It’s like going to your grandma’s on a Friday and the food is there in the middle and you serve each other, you pass it on.

Wherever we’ve gone, we’ve taken that essence with us, and that is what makes Mariolino Mariolino. We’ve only ever been on the Mediterranean and I think the Mediterranean shares this culture wherever you are.

E: This isn’t your first rodeo in Sahel — what did you learn the first time around?

MjH: I opened Mariolino on the North Coast back in 2021 in Playa by Seashell as a pop-up. I learned a lot from that experience. I used to come to Egypt for the El Gouna Film Festival, spend a week a year, and that’s it. I didn’t know the culture behind how people consumed food here. In Lebanon, we weren’t exposed to Sahel. I opened a restaurant thinking it operates at normal restaurant hours, which for us are 1-3 pm and 7-11 pm. Nobody would show up — I soon realized that lunch here happens after people finish going to the beach, then nobody’s having dinner at 8 pm because they've just had “lunch.” I’d close by 11pm and people would start arriving by 11pm. I learned my lesson.

E: Given your previous experience, what sort of expectations would you say you had when planning to launch Mariolino in Ramla?

MjH: I had aspirations, not expectations. This isn’t a restaurant. When Marakez came to me and said they were planning a boutique hotel in Ramla, a small one by the sea, I was interested but honest with myself: I didn’t know if I had the bandwidth. I’m already stretched. But if I was going to do it, it had to resonate with where I am in life right now — or I wouldn’t give it everything it needs. And in Sahel, if you’re not giving everything, you won’t be seen. There’s too much going on.

So I asked myself what would please me at my core, regardless of whether it flies or not. The answer was hosting — opening my home to like-minded people, cooking for them, entertaining them. That’s how I live anyway. My home is always open; people sleep over, I cook, we party. I wanted to do that on a bigger scale: live in this house, meet new people, have friends come through, watch strangers become friends. That was the aspiration. No expectations. And today, I think we got pretty close to it.

E: You’ve spoken before about your design philosophy: that you didn’t care what Mariolino looked like, only what people felt. What do you want people to feel?

MjH: When we briefed TDF+, the agency that designed the space, I had no visual brief. No “it needs to be blue, with a green wall and Art Deco finishing.” None of that mattered to me. What I wanted people to feel was warmth. I’m a big believer in energy, and energy is created through sound, light, and mood. So those were the things I cared about: how much greenery, the color of the light, whether it’s direct or indirect, the ambiance, the music, the experiences we’d create for guests. What mattered were the spaces themselves — what we’d do with them, and how people would feel while living their lives inside them.

E: Walk me through how you curated the F&B experience, and tell me about the pop-ups and collaborations you’ve had this summer.

MjH: The main restaurant takes a Mediterranean approach. But the food experience at Mariolino goes well beyond that one space. From the moment you wake up, breakfast is served in an open-air kitchen where you do your own thing — cook yourself, ask for help, or find me making eggs. There’s no hotel buffet, no chef waiting at a station. Think of it like going to a friend’s big Sahel house where you’re comfortable enough to raid the fridge.

Beyond the menus, there are experiences. Wednesdays, we do dinners that see 120 people around one table, feet in the sand, seafood coming continuously, freeflowing wine and beer, strangers feasting together. Thursdays are Mario and Friends: guest chefs from everywhere join me in the kitchen, each cooking their own thing in front of guests. We choose chefs who bring soul, not plating precision. Fridays are mine — I cook from six until late, mostly pasta, in a large skillet in front of everyone, à la carte with one communal dish I keep replenishing. On Saturdays we run beach barbecues. Sundays see one communal table, a set menu, nobody knows what’s coming, strangers leave as friends. And when we feel like doing something else, we do it. It’s our home.

E: Has the season been profitable?

MjH: Financially, no. In terms of success, yes. We’ve hit our positioning targets — everybody’s talking about the concept, we’ve carved out the niche we wanted, and we’ve managed to stay away from becoming a party spot, which was our biggest fear going in. There are enough of those in Sahel. We wanted to be about food, experience, and connection. That’s what we became. For the first season, the goal was to position ourselves and learn — and we’ve never done hospitality before. Housekeeping, reservations, room service: all new to me. We’ve taken notes. Next year, we’ll be much better prepared.

E: What would it have taken to break even?

MjH: Two things. The imported alcohol license didn’t come through in time, and that hit us hard — that’s where the numbers come from. Without it, your ticket price drops and your footfall drops. The second thing is that we’re in a compound that’s still largely uninhabited. The people who came to us came specifically for us — making their way out there just for Mariolino. That’s a strong signal, but it’s not a large pool.

We could have thrown parties, generated revenue, and hit better figures in the short term. But it would have cost us the positioning. I wasn’t willing to do that. I’d rather come in under on revenue and land exactly where I wanted to be on the brand.

E: Has Mariolino driven footfall to Ramla while the compound is still largely empty?

MjH: Absolutely. Kudos to Marakez for choosing an operator with no hospitality experience but a clear point of view on elevated experiences — that’s exactly what they wanted. Ramla isn’t chasing the quick buck. They want a specific audience that knows what it wants, and Mariolino has hit that mark for them. I’ve heard from investors who were planning to sell their units and changed their minds after seeing what we built. I’ve heard from people who decided to buy because of the Mariolino experience. That says something.

E: How have you seen Sahel evolve between your first experience in 2021 and this season?

MjH: From what I can see, it’s grown on a party level and it’s more prominent globally. Middle East Airlines now flies direct to El Alamein Airport, which five years ago would have been unthinkable. International operators are all moving here. Each of us has helped put the North Coast on the map for a different audience.

E: What would it take for Sahel to become a truly global destination?

MjH: One very clear thing: the season needs to expand. Right now, Sahel operates in July and August — precisely when all of Europe is on holiday and has a hundred other options. Against Mykonos or Ibiza, you’re at a disadvantage. The beaches are unparalleled, genuinely stunning, but that’s about it. There’s nothing else to do. And it’s expensive — more expensive than Ibiza, comparable to Mykonos, but without the breadth of experience. If you’re a foreigner who doesn’t know anyone here, you’re stranded.

The two-month season is also what drives the prices up. Operators need to cover substantial fixed costs — housing, staff who demand peak-season salaries, suppliers who charge twice as much because everything comes from Cairo. You cannot reduce prices within a two-month window and survive. To make it affordable for an international audience, you need to extend the season.

April through November is entirely viable — the weather is good, I know because I was here during construction in April. A six-month season is coming; with Modon, Ras El Hekma, and everything being developed, it’s inevitable. Once the season extends, prices come down, international visitors come in, investment follows, and the offering elevates. We’re heading there — it’ll just take a few years.