The Best Places in the United Arab Emirates

Thirty villas scattered across a savannah, where the neighbors are more likely to be gazelles than other guests. This private-island resort on Sir Bani Yas pairs game drives and wildlife spotting with horse riding, watersports, and archery, so no one runs out of reasons to leave the villa, or excuses to stay in it. The spa draws on Arab beauty traditions, and four restaurants cover everything from South African grilling to Mediterranean.

A nature reserve five miles off Abu Dhabi doubles as a resort, which sounds like a press release but turns out to be accurate. Anantara runs it with the island-mellow ease of their Thai properties, so the scale is unmistakably Emirati (rooms large, suites lavish) but the mood is looser than the mainland norm. Game drives and trail hikes sit alongside the pool and spa, and you fly in on a small prop plane, which sets the tone nicely.

The walls are lined with family photos, the celebrities among them suggesting this Persian kebab spot near Al Fahidi has been feeding the right people for a long time. An old-school institution, it runs on marinated mutton, chicken, and tenderloin served over saffron rice, and the portions are generous in a way that feels almost confrontational. Communal tables, no ceremony, and prices that make you look twice at the bill.

You walk in through a tiny vinyl record shop, which sets the tone perfectly. Honeycomb Hi-Fi is a Japanese small-plates-and-cocktail bar tucked inside a hotel, all wooden paneling, midcentury chairs, and Ojas speakers doing serious work. The menu runs wagyu katsu sliders and lamb gyozas, while the bar turns out highballs with the kind of theatrical flair that makes the people around you briefly stop talking.

The wood-fired tacos here come two bites each, and the kitchen turns out around 800 of them a day, which tells you something about how seriously this beachside taco spot takes itself. Chef Shaw Lash brought a deep fluency in Mexican techniques and sourcing to Dubai, and the menu follows traditional styles she refined working in Mexican kitchens across the world. Casual, affordable, and a short walk from the beach.

Palestinian comfort food served in an old villa on Al Wasl Road, with metal platters hitting the table minutes after you order. This is the Al Manara location, the one people actually argue about, and it runs from breakfast until 1 a.m. The menu is carb-forward and unapologetically so: manakeesh, hummus, musakhan chicken rolls, grilled haloumi. Come hungry and early, or you'll be waiting in the overflow shed wondering where the evening went.

A whitewashed Greek taverna hidden in a car park basement off Sheikh Zayed Road, which sounds like a warning but lands closer to a discovery. The room runs to terra-cotta tones and an intimate, down-to-earth feel, and the menu covers the expected ground of tzatziki and souvlaki before slow-cooked suckling lamb and charred octopus make a stronger case for staying. It fills up fast at peak hours, so book ahead.

Phyllo-wrapped pies are the whole point here, made with enough butter to register on a seismograph, at this bright cafe tucked into Alserkal Avenue's arts-district sprawl. The maroon-and-stainless interior is cheerful without trying too hard, and the menu runs hearty and a little unexpected, with wagyu pastrami phyllo and pink pickled onions sitting alongside brunch pies loaded with salmon and trout caviar. The elderflower matcha is the kind of thing you order ironically and then reorder.

Lobster rolls and oysters by the dozen pull most of the weight here, but the truffle pizzas have their loyalists too. The Maine is a brasserie-style bar and grill tucked into a DoubleTree, which undersells it: the bar runs loud and the room fills fast with people who came for a drink and stayed for dinner. The concept has since spread to Ibiza and Mayfair, which tells you something about the formula.

A restored Jumeirah villa turned into a family restaurant by a Jordanian mother and her two daughters, each handling a different corner of the operation. The sourdough uses only flour, water, and salt, which tells you something about where they stand on shortcuts. The rooms feel like someone's home because, in spirit, they are. It's the kind of place that makes restraint look easy.

A food hall perched at the foot of the Burj Khalifa, with the Dubai Fountains performing outside and cheerful pandemonium performing inside. Time Out's editors curated the vendors, so you get a credible mix of homegrown spots rather than the usual airport-court suspects. Tourists fill most of the seats, but the food holds up, and the drinks are among the more affordable you'll find anywhere in this city.

The circular bar on the 44th floor of Grosvenor House earns the name, with views over the marina that make it easy to forgive the champagne-bar origins and the flashier crowd that came with them. This is a cocktail bar now, properly, with lounge rooms off to the sides for anyone who wants to sit somewhere quieter and pretend they planned ahead. The jetset still shows up, but so does everyone else.

Hanwoo beef, Korea's most prized native cattle breed, is the whole reason this upscale Korean barbecue restaurant exists at the St. Regis on the Palm. It's the only spot in Dubai serving it, flown in directly from Korea and cooked over tableside charcoal grills with the kind of calm precision that makes theatre feel unnecessary. Warm wood, soft light, composed service. It landed at number 28 on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list, which for a Korean barbecue concept is a statement.

A coffee shop sitting right on Jumeirah Fishing Harbour, where the view does a fair amount of the heavy lifting. BRIX leans into minimalist interiors and pour-overs, the kind of place where the laptop crowd settles in for hours without anyone making pointed eye contact. Pastries come along for the ride. It's quiet enough to get something done, which is probably why the Asian Coffee Map called it one of Dubai's better spots for working remotely.

A specialty coffee roastery tucked into an Al Quoz warehouse, where the industrial bones of the space, exposed ducts and raw concrete, do most of the decorating. The team roasts in-house, so the room smells like the product before you order it. Quiet enough that people bring laptops and actual books, which is rarer than it sounds in Dubai. Pour-overs and cold brew are the moves here.

The bar at this Japanese restaurant-bar in the Monarch Hotel runs impossibly narrow, which somehow makes it feel more like a scene than an inconvenience. Regulars wedged in shoulder-to-shoulder are usually debating which large-format bottle to order next, but the bartenders behind the counter are quietly serious about what they're doing. A high-energy cocktail bar with a mezzanine-level address and prices to match the postcode.