Lebanese food in Dubai: what an "Arabic restaurant" really means

How mezze actually works

You do not order a starter and a main. You order six or eight small plates for the table, they arrive more or less together with a stack of flatbread, and you eat them with bread and your hands over an hour. Grilled meat comes later, if at all, and often nobody has room.

The standard opening set: hummus, moutabal, tabbouleh, fattoush, warak enab, and something fried: kibbeh or sambousek. Add labneh, muhammara or makdous if the place looks like it makes its own. Two people can eat well on four plates and bread; four people should order six and add a mixed grill.

Manakish, and why breakfast is the underrated meal

A manakish is flatbread pressed out and baked to order with a topping, zaatar and olive oil, akkawi cheese, or minced lamb. It costs AED 5 to 15, it takes four minutes, and it is what a large part of the city eats on the way to work.

The bakeries that make them are small, unmarked and everywhere in Satwa, Deira and Al Rigga. Look for a wood or gas oven visible from the street and a queue at eight in the morning. It is the cheapest genuinely good breakfast in Dubai.

Shawarma, and what it should cost

A Lebanese shawarma is a thin wrap (chicken with garlic sauce and pickles, or beef with tahini and tomato) not the loaded doner of European high streets. It should cost AED 10 to 20 and take two minutes, and it is the standard late-night food of the city.

If a place is charging AED 35 for one, you are in a mall or a hotel. The counters in Satwa, Al Rigga and Karama charge a third of that and slice from a spit that has been turning all evening, which is the version you want.

Where to find it

Satwa and Al Rigga hold the highest concentration of Lebanese and Syrian places, from bakeries to full restaurants, and they are cheap. Jumeirah and Downtown have the polished versions with terraces and licences at three to five times the price.

The mid-market chains in the malls are competent and unexciting. As with Indian food, the neighbourhood version is better and cheaper, the difference is the room, not the cooking.

Timing and drinking

Lebanese places run late. A mezze dinner starting at ten is normal, the shawarma counters work until two or three, and on a Friday and Saturday the terraces are full at midnight. Booking is worth it at the polished end and pointless at the other.

Alcohol is served only at licensed venues, which in practice means hotel restaurants and licensed standalones. Most neighbourhood Lebanese places serve fresh juice, mint lemonade and tea instead, and a jallab or a laymoun na'na' with mezze is not a compromise.

The pastry shops

The sweet half of the cuisine has its own shops instead of sharing space with the restaurants, and they are worth finding. Baklava in its many shapes, knafeh eaten warm with the cheese still stretching, maamoul stuffed with dates or pistachio, and trays of things sold by weight, not by the piece.

Buying by weight is the normal method: point at three or four kinds, ask for a quarter kilo, and it is boxed up mixed. Knafeh is the exception and is made and eaten on the spot, usually in the evening, and it is one of the genuinely great things to eat in this city.

Nothing here needs a reservation outside a weekend evening, and the bakeries never do.

Buy by weight and take more than you think you want.