Restaurants in Dubai: by cuisine, by district and by what it costs

Where the cheap food is

Deira and Bur Dubai, without much competition. The cafeterias and canteens around the souks serve full meals for the price of a coffee in Downtown, and they are busy with people who work nearby, not with visitors. Karama and Al Quoz are the other two names worth knowing for the same reason.

In Downtown and the Marina the floor price roughly triples for the same dish. If the budget is tight, eat well in the creek district during the day and treat the towers as somewhere you have a drink rather than dinner.

By cuisine

Indian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan cooking is the deepest category and the best value. Lebanese and Syrian is the next, and it is where to go for a long shared table. Iranian, Filipino and Ethiopian are all well represented. Japanese and Italian are the expensive imports and are priced accordingly.

Seafood is a special case: the fish is local and excellent, and the same catch appears at wildly different prices depending on whether you eat it near the market or in a hotel.

Alcohol, and why it changes the bill

Licensed venues are overwhelmingly attached to hotels, so a meal with wine usually means eating in a hotel restaurant, and the markup on drinks is steep. A dinner that would be mid-priced elsewhere becomes an expensive evening once a bottle is on the table.

Restaurants outside hotels are generally unlicensed, which is also part of why they are cheaper. It is worth deciding in advance which kind of evening you are having, because the two are priced differently rather than slightly differently.

Booking, timing and Ramadan

Dubai eats late. Restaurants fill from about eight and the Marina and JBR promenades are busiest after nine, which means an early table is usually available without a booking and a nine o'clock one at the weekend is not. Friday and Saturday evenings are the peak; brunch, which is a substantial institution here, is a Friday or Saturday midday affair and is booked out well in advance at the popular venues.

During Ramadan the pattern inverts. Many restaurants close during daylight hours or serve only hotel guests, and then run iftar buffets from sunset. Eating in public during fasting hours is restricted, so a daytime meal usually means room service or a hotel restaurant screened for the purpose.

Dress codes exist at the higher end and at anywhere with a bar attached, and smart-casual is a real requirement, not a suggestion.

Eating by cuisine

Ten cuisines with their own page. The pattern that runs through all of them: the neighbourhood version is better and roughly half the price of the mall or hotel version, and the districts matter more than the addresses.

The value tier: Indian food, the most regionally varied and the cheapest real meal in the city at a AED 15 thali. Lebanese, which is what most menus mean by Arabic food, with AED 5 bakery breakfasts and late-night shawarma. Filipino, a large scene that sits entirely off the visitor map. Turkish, whose breakfast is the best reason to seek it out.

The ones worth the effort of finding: Emirati food, the local cuisine and paradoxically the hardest to eat. Persian, the oldest imported cuisine here and still concentrated where it landed. Seafood, best bought whole at the Deira market and cooked on the spot.

And the international end: Japanese, two separate markets wearing one name, with a serious high end. Italian, everywhere and inconsistent in a predictable way. Plus vegetarian and vegan, which is far easier here than the city's reputation suggests.