The Best Places in the United Arab Emirates

Part café, part restaurant, part gallery, part library, Maisan15 sits in Al Barsha doing several things at once and pulling off all of them. Prints by David Shrigley and Dan Witz hang on walls where the art is also for sale, and the kitchen sends out a Levantine-leaning menu in a room that smells of coffee and good intentions. A Discovery on The 50 list for Dubai.

The dough ferments for 48 hours before it ever sees the oven, which tells you how seriously this Neapolitan-style pizzeria inside Dar Wasl Mall takes what is, at its heart, a very simple thing. Moon Slice built its reputation on inventive topping combinations and an interior made for photographs, and the room still draws a crowd happy to play along. A casual, affordable slice of Naples via Al Wasl Road.

The glass-and-wood steakhouse inside the Four Seasons where Nusret Gökçe, better known as Salt Bae, built his empire on beef and a single viral moment. The theatrics are very much part of the offer, but behind the internet fame is a family of butchers going back generations. Come for a proper splurge on a steak cut tableside, and expect a room that takes both the meat and the moment quite seriously.

The Barcelona original put cocktails inside a fridge; this ninth-floor outpost swapped the fridge for a circus. A cocktail bar inside the Five Luxe JBR, Paradiso Dubai goes big on spectacle: candy stripes, circus motifs, and drinks that arrive as set pieces, one served inside a miniature steam engine under sesame foam, another glowing green thanks to riboflavin and something billed as an electric liqueur. A named spot on The 50 Discovery list.

A sign on the glass front asks, "Ciao Jumeirah, fancy some pasta?" and sixteen seats fill up at noon and again at night, which answers that question. This tiny pasta restaurant on Jumeirah Beach Road was started by a former designer with a genuine obsession with Italian technique, and the classics arrive with small, smart twists that don't overshadow the thing itself. The 50 Discovery list picked it up.

The name promises Shanghai, but the menu wanders the whole continent, from Cantonese dumplings to a dedicated sushi and sashimi section. This is a pan-Asian restaurant done with Art Deco bones and a prohibition-era sense of theater, moody enough that the rosy lighting flatters everyone at the table. The banana tree terrace and zodiac cocktails keep things flirtatious. A place where the second date is equally plausible as the tenth anniversary.

The tagline is "food you love to eat," which sounds like something plastered on a cafeteria tray until the food arrives and you stop reading signs. This casual eatery in Mercato Mall pulls from French technique, Peruvian brightness, and Korean heat without planting a flag in any of them. The chef cooked at Ducasse and Momofuku, and the menu reads like what happens when someone absorbs all of that and then just cooks what they want.

Menus arrive as faux passports, which tells you most of what you need to know about the vibe here. This casual all-day restaurant in Dubai Mall leans hard into fusion, pairing Middle Eastern ingredients with global formats: wagyu kebab in bao, French omelette spiced with za'atar, a fatteh bar at dinner. The breakfast side skews playful to a fault, but the lunch and dinner menu settles into something more grounded.

The pasta is made from scratch, the cheese made in-house, and the herbs cut from a kitchen garden steps from the stove. This Italian restaurant at the Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental channels what its founding chef calls family-style cooking, with a protégé running the kitchen day to day. The room leans formal, the ethos homey, which is a tension the cooking navigates rather well without making a fuss about it.

Dinner here begins at the pass, where the team hands you the first course before you've even found your seat. Trèsind Studio is a tasting-menu restaurant inside Dubai's VOCO Hotel, built around chef Himanshu Saini's deeply personal take on Indian cooking, vegetable-forward and technically dazzling without losing the thread back to the subcontinent. It earned a spot on The 50 Discovery list, which tracks where serious eaters are paying attention.

Hayat Island is man-made, which somehow makes the Jebel Jais mountains behind it and the Gulf water in front of it look more surreal, not less. This is a large beach resort, with 351 rooms, suites, and villas, a private beach, pools, a spa, and six restaurants and bars. Some villas come with private pools; all rooms get the ocean view. Ras Al Khaimah rewards the detour from Dubai, and this is the kind of place that gives you a reason to stay a few days and actually use it.

Two towers connected by an observation deck over Dubai Creek Harbour, which tells you immediately what kind of scale Emaar had in mind. This hotel goes full Dubai in the lobbies, with gold accents, statement chandeliers, and marbled everything, but the 233 rooms and suites pull back to something quieter. The harbor and skyline views from the middle deck are the real argument for choosing it over somewhere more central.

A hotel in Al Jadaf that treats restraint as a design philosophy, which in Dubai is roughly as rare as a quiet roundabout. The Architecture Studio building tempers its hard modernism with Art Deco warmth, and rooms run from the sensibly compact to the 50-square-meter Mega for those who feel the city deserves a response in kind. Rooftop pool, gym, and a restaurant that skips the gold leaf for clean eating. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

Low-rise luxury in a city that treats altitude as a personality trait, Vida Creek Harbour is a hotel that keeps things unfussy while the towers of Dubai Creek Harbour crowd around it. Neutral tones, warm furniture, and arabesque detailing on the exterior and throughout the interiors give it a grounded feel. The Michelin Guide includes it among its selected hotels, and the skyline views do a lot of the heavy lifting.

The Liwa Desert is part of the Empty Quarter, the largest continuous sand desert on earth, and this Anantara resort sits squarely in the middle of it, about ninety minutes from Abu Dhabi. Standard rooms come with oversized soaking tubs and dune views; suites remind you, fairly forcefully, that you're in the Emirates. An infinity pool, a full spa, and rooms comfortable enough to disappear into for days round out the offer. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

Rooms here face the Gulf of Oman, so you fall asleep to actual waves rather than a white-noise app. Palace Beach Resort Fujairah is a mid-size beachfront resort on the Fujairah coast, about an hour from Dubai, with a private beach, a pool, and a handful of restaurants keeping things self-contained. The interiors lean breezy and light-filled rather than grand, which suits the barefoot pace of the place better than marble columns would.

The tower leans. Not a little, either: Capital Gate tilts at an angle that makes the Leaning Tower of Pisa look timid, and Andaz has filled the interior with art, warm materials, and a 19th-floor pool deck rather than let the spectacle do all the work. It's a luxury boutique hotel, so expect Hyatt-level service alongside the gallery space and spa. The Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre is next door, the airport fifteen minutes away.

About twenty miles outside Dubai, where construction cranes give way to polo grounds, this resort sits in a pocket of genuine green. Villas come with private pools, the larger residences have nine-foot privacy walls, and the spa runs Kerstin Florian treatments. The polo angle is the real draw: riding lessons, matches, and tennis for when you've had enough of the ponies.

The W Abu Dhabi sits astride the Formula One racecourse on Yas Island, its glass-and-steel shell running a synchronized LED light show after dark that makes the building look like it's auditioning for something. This is a full-throttle luxury hotel: edgy, color-saturated rooms, suites that scale up to genuinely extravagant, a multi-cuisine flagship restaurant, and a wellness center with a lounge overlooking the track, in case you like your massages with a side of motorsport.

Seven restored manor houses form the bones of this 65-room luxury hotel in the heart of Sharjah's heritage district, stitched together with newer buildings in a way that feels less renovation project and more quiet reinvention. Rooms blend minimalist Asian calm with Arabic textiles and warm wood, and the spa runs separate wings for women and men with hammam rituals on the menu. Creek Harbour views back the Japanese and Korean restaurant next door.

Large bay windows frame the canal and gardens at this bright, spacious Indian restaurant inside Jumeirah Al Qasr. Chef Ritu Dalmia's menu roams the subcontinent, pulling regional classics into a contemporary register alongside dishes that lean more fusion. The room is pretty and the service genuinely warm, which in a resort of this scale feels less like a given than it should.

A sun-bleached palette of oatmeal and natural stone sets the tone at this Greek restaurant in DIFC, where the chef draws on childhood summers along the Greek coast. The food follows that same unhurried logic, mezze spreads of hot, cold, and raw dishes meant for a table of friends with nowhere to be. It reads less like Dubai doing Greece and more like Greece forgetting to leave.

The steaks are the reason to lean in at this beach club restaurant, bar, and all-hours hangout on J1 Beach. The menu roams from sashimi to robata skewers to pasta, built for sharing, and the staff are worth listening to on portion sizes before you order half the menu by accident. Cocktails carry you from aperitif through to whenever the night decides to end.

The soaring ceiling and contemporary chandeliers inside the Shangri-La set the tone for Nicolas Isnard's French dining room, where the menu splits between classical French cooking and dishes shaped by the chef's travels. Two tasting menus trace those two directions, and the à la carte follows the same logic. The portions are generous, the flavours direct, and the kitchen isn't shy about a Grand Cru dark chocolate pear for dessert.

A seafood restaurant built around a working fishing harbour, where the day's catch sits on ice near the entrance so you can pick what ends up on your plate. The team behind 3Fils partnered with a Turkish fisherman to open this rustic spot, and the menu leans into that provenance, running from Norwegian salmon and turbot to locally caught hamour when the boats cooperate. Tahini baklava closes things out in a way nobody argues with.

A DJ booth and a live band on Saturday nights set the tone at this American brasserie inside the Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental, where the menu leans into classics, beef Wellington for the table, steaks, lobster bisque, and a tart Tatin that earns its place on the bill. The room runs loud and glamorous in the way only a Broadway theme can justify, and the service keeps pace without breaking a sweat.

The glowing geometric room at this Indian fine dining restaurant in DIFC sets the tone before a single plate arrives. The kitchen works from a deep respect for India's culinary traditions and then does something playful and a little theatrical with them, including tableside preparation. Tamarind chutney ice cream and tom yum rasam in the same meal are either provocative or delightful, which probably depends on your mood.

Perched high in the Four Seasons on Al Maryah Island, Coya is a Peruvian restaurant that folds Japanese and Chinese inflections into its Latin American framework, a combination that sounds like a dare and mostly lands. Ceviche, tacos, and skewers are built to circle the table, while the mains run toward grilled lobster and wagyu. A 16-course tasting menu is there for the committed, a set lunch for the sensible.

A giant red dragonfly hovers over the dining room, and the dark wood ceiling panels were fitted by craftsmen who came over from China specifically for the job. This contemporary Japanese restaurant on the Marasi waterfront swings wide, covering sushi, maki, dim sum, and noodles, with pan-Asian detours along the way. Lunch draws a quieter crowd; dinner tips into cocktail bar energy with the volume to match.

Azulejo tiles hand-painted in the Portuguese tradition line the walls of this Lebanese seafood restaurant inside the Rosewood on Al Maryah Island, which feels like an odd combination until you're sitting with water views in every direction and a mezze spread arriving from all sides. Stop at the seafood counter on the way in, because that's where the evening's direction gets decided. The menu is built for sharing, with the kind of vibrant, balanced dishes that make ordering feel like a group project.

Camel leather chairs and banquette seating fill a heritage building in Nad Al Sheba, where this Emirati restaurant treats local culture as the whole point rather than the backdrop. The menu runs through mezze, chicken machboos, salads, and sandwiches, all built for sharing, and the fwala tray reframes high tea as an Emirati affair. The team is warm in the way that makes you stay longer than planned.

A Sakura tree anchors the middle of the dining room, which tells you this Lebanese restaurant in The Galleria mall is going for something a little more theatrical than your average shawarma stop. The space leans into colour hard, with floral chairs and pink-flower vines throughout. Dishes are built for sharing and come in generous portions. Save space for the kunafa, which earns its own sentence here.

A wishing tree wrapped in red ribbons anchors the dining room at this Silk Road-themed Chinese restaurant in DIFC, where the menu travels from Northern China through Xinjiang and into fiery Sichuan territory, because the chef happens to be from there. Lanterns string the terrace, lunch skews corporate, and dinner loosens up considerably. The flaming whole Peking duck is the move for anyone marking an occasion.

Fishing rods double as pendant lights here, which tells you everything about the commitment to the bit. This Lebanese seafood restaurant on Palm Jumeirah's waterfront is owned by working fishermen, so the catch on your plate arrived recently and not via a middleman with a refrigerated truck. Fish murals, nautical stripes, and a patio that looks straight out at the Arabian Gulf complete the picture.

Martín Berasategui named this 18th-floor Basque restaurant after his eldest granddaughter, which is either charming or a lot of pressure for the kid. The room runs dark and brasserie-grand, with an open kitchen where everything moves over fire and charcoal. The terrace looks straight out at Downtown Dubai, and the Basque cheesecake has a following of its own. Dress like you mean it.

Dry-aged cuts sit on display in glass cabinets as you walk in, which tells you most of what you need to know about Leña. It's a grilled meats and fish restaurant on The Palm, the Dubai outpost of Spanish chef Dani García, where the black-and-orange room is meant to evoke charcoal embers. Croquetas come in tempura rather than breadcrumbs, the signature burger makes an appearance mid-meal, and dessert rolls out on a trolley. Grab the terrace when the weather cooperates.

A contemporary restaurant tucked into Dubai's Al Barari neighborhood, where most of the cooking happens over open flames, a wood-fired oven, or the rotisserie. The room is light wood and concrete, kept spare enough that the food does the talking. The chef duo behind it runs a tasting menu that moves through global culinary traditions, land, sea, and air getting roughly equal billing. A Michelin Selected Restaurant.

A seat on the terrace puts the Burj Khalifa directly overhead, which is either romantic or completely distracting depending on your company. Inside, this Chinese restaurant splits between a Regency-style parlour and a darker, club-like library room. The classic menu runs from dim sum to sweet and sour chicken, and a set tasting menu exists for anyone who'd rather not negotiate. The team is charming and happy to guide you through it.

Perched in Etihad Towers, Moksh is a bright, color-saturated Indian restaurant that moves from street snacks to regional classics without losing the thread. The kitchen leans on familiar flavors while quietly nudging things contemporary, which sounds like a cliche until you taste the chaat served in crisp puris. The kulfi lands well-presented at the end, suggesting a team that takes dessert as seriously as the rest of it.

The open kitchen at this Mediterranean restaurant in The Galleria Mall is ringed by a counter dressed with seasonal ingredients, which is either decor or a menu hint, probably both. It's a spacious, smartly laid room where a pianist plays all day, giving lunch the slightly cinematic quality of a movie set in somewhere nicer than a mall. The pasta is made fresh daily, and the fish and gazpacho earn their place on the menu.

Floor-to-ceiling windows face the Al Qana Marina, and the shaded terrace spills out toward the water beyond. Oii is a casual, all-day Mediterranean spot that runs from a wide breakfast spread into colorful small plates, salads, and larger dishes as the day progresses. The cooking leans bright and punchy, grilled octopus with mojo rojo setting the register. The name means "hi" in Portuguese, which about captures the mood.

Horseshoe booths overlooking the marina at Port de la Mer set the scene at this Italian restaurant with an unusual angle: the kitchen folds Japanese technique into the menu alongside homemade pastas and pizzas topped with things like spicy duck and sriracha. The tiramisu arrives wrapped in soft meringue, which is either alarming or intriguing depending on your mood. A serious alcohol-free wine list means non-drinkers get something worth thinking about too.