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Saj Express
Saj Express is one of Sheikh Zayed Rd's top fast-food joints, and the fresh bread (cooked on the saj, a curved, iron dome-topped oven) is what makes the shawarmas here so special. The rest of the menu doesn't excite, but pair a shawarma with one of the fresh juices and you can't go wrong.
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Sezzam
This restaurant is so huge, it almost surpasses the sight of skiers and snowboarders heading down the slopes of the adjacent Ski Dubai. With global cuisine labelled under the Flame, Bake or Steam monikers, it's really a food court with style - and a great break on a shopping excursion at this massive mall.
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Shabestan
Shabestan is Dubai's top Persian restaurant, but don't take our word for it. Ask Sheikh Mohammed, who regularly pops in for lunch. We prefer a window table at dinner time, when the window-lined dining room reveals a panorama of glittering lights over the Creek. Hot fresh bread and homemade yoghurt hit the table as you arrive. Mountains of perfumed rice accompany melt-off-the-bone braised lamb. Save room for vermicelli ice cream with saffron and rose water. The Persian house band is first-rate.
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Shahrzad
Shahrzad offers excellent Iranian cuisine and live music surrounded by antiques evoking the feel of old Persia. As soon as you enter the restaurant the enticing aromas of bread baked in the traditional tanour (oven) and meat kebabs slowly cooking on the open grill will make your mouth water.
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Shoo Fee Ma Fee
Literally meaning 'what's up?', what's up at Shoo Fee Ma Fee are three floors of Moroccan ambience overlooking the appealing waterways of Madinat Jumeirah. Pigeon pastilla and other Maghreb favourites offer flavour melodies as true as the authentic in-house band, but the more inventive dishes on the menu don't always hit the right notes.
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Sidra
The top pick for mezze on Al-Dhiyafah St - Dubai's best walking street - Sidra does a great moutabbal (eggplant dip), creamy-rich hummus, tangy tabouleh and fantastic fresh, hot bread. The kebabs are okay, but the dips are what's best. Inside is ugly; sit on the sidewalk and soak up the street scene. Ideal after a night out.
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Smiling BKK
Locals will kill us for including this indie hole-in-the-wall Thai gem, but it's too good not to share. The walls of the cheek-by-jowl space are covered with hipster mishmash (think Van Gogh paint-by-numbers, postcards, and a moustached Mona-Lisa), and scratchy rock-and-roll blares on the speakers (sit outside for quiet conversation). A Thai national cooks your dinner.
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Spectrum On One
The most popular brunch in town includes free-flowing bubbly and eight different buffets with six different cuisines. Phenomenal sushi. Book weeks ahead.
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Splendido
Tall palms sway in the breeze around the outdoor patio at the Ritz-Carlton's northern Italian restaurant, an ideal spot to hold hands by candlelight. It's not as formal as you'd expect - linens are cream, not white - and the cooking is more trattoria style, earthy and rich as in the morel-and-porcini-mushroom ravioli in a pan-reduced brown sauce. Pastas are perfectly al dente, and the tiramisu feather-light.
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Sumibiya
Japanese BBQ-grill cooking (aka Yakiniku) is the specialty at Sumibiya, and every table has a recessed fire grill. Though the Wagyu beef and seafood run high, the set menus of various meat-and-veggie combos are a relative bargain. There's nothing romantic about the narrow windowless room, but it's great fun for families or groups of foodie friends. If you can't bear to cook your own dinner, fried-rice dishes spare you the trouble.
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Tagine
You feel like you're in Tangiers at Tagine. Cozy up between throw pillows at a low-slung table in the shadowy-dim dining room, and tap your toe to the live Moroccan band. Fez-capped waiters jump in and dance (sometimes neglecting your table) between runs to the kitchen for big platters of tagine and couscous. This is the real deal. Book ahead, and request a table near the band.
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Tang
Tang raises the level of culinary discourse in Dubai, but does it feed you dinner? The chef is more scientist than cook - he unabashedly calls his cooking style 'molecular' - fetishising food for its atomic structure, not for its sustenance. This amounts to a lot of complicated (and expensive) cryogenics: instead of a hunk of tomato with basil, you may get a paper-thin tulip made from tomato purée blasted with liquid nitrogen, then garnished with a crumbled, flash-frozen basil leaf.
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Thai Chi
We're generally sceptical of restaurants that serve two differing cuisines, but Thai Chi does Thai and Chinese right - probably because it has two separate kitchens. The extensive Thai menu does great things with prawns; the Chinese menu stands out for its irresistible Peking duck and wok specialties. A solid choice for a midrange meal at Wafi.
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Thai Kitchen
The decor is decidedly un-Thai, with black-lacquer tables, a swooping wave-form ceiling, and not a branch of bamboo, but the two open kitchens dominating the room are run entirely by Thai nationals. This is the real deal: dishes are based on Bangkok street eats, served tapas-style. Come for Friday brunch and sample the entire menu. Standouts: prawns in pandan leaves, and crispy catfish in baconlike strips with green-mango salad. One complaint: they under-spice. Ask for it hot!
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Thiptara Royal Thai
The prices are as high as the adjacent Burj Dubai, but if you're looking for a reason to linger long beneath the world's tallest tower, Thiptara's elegant interpretations of classic Thai dishes and its location in a lakeside Thai-style pagoda provide just the excuse. The note-perfect som tum (green-papaya salad) is as good as we've had in Bangkok; the smoky-hot ka pohn nau (beef in spicy brown sauce) is intensely spiced with on-the-vine peppercorns.
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Tokyo@Thetowers
We're torn about T@T. While it serves brilliant sashimi and some of the freshest, perkiest, shiniest sushi in town, the prices are ridiculous, there's no din and the views from the corridor-like dining room are of a shopping mall - a big letdown when you consider its location in one of Dubai's iconic towers. Try Kiku first, but keep this in your back pocket if they're booked.
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Trader Vic's
This branch of the Polynesian-themed chain has been here longer than the pyramids. We love it for its lethal Mai Tai cocktails, excellent starter plates to share, and brilliant filet mignon and Peking duck pancakes. We'll not apologise for it being a bit of a guilty pleasure, with its cheesy décor and only-good-when-you're-drunk house band.
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Troyka
A little slice of Moscow for the ever-increasing number of Russian tourists in Dubai, Troyka has everything you need for a night on the town: copious amounts of vodka, caviar, hearty mains (try the tongue), and best of all a fabulously camp floorshow that would do Bob Fosse proud. Arrive around .
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Verre By Gordon Ramsay
The pinnacle of Dubai's culinary scene, Verre stands out for embracing the gentile art de la table in all its sensuality - from your first sip of champagne to your last bite of chocolate, this is one meal you won't soon forget. Verre plays to European sophisticates who recognize subtlety, not to Dubai's ubiquitous parvenu: there are no distracting gimmicks, no silly flourishes and no dumbing down of the West's great culinary traditions.
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Vu's
As the name implies, the views are stellar from this gorgeous tower-top white-tablecloth dining room, a favourite of wheeler-dealers celebrating the closing of a multi-million-dollar contract. The Australian-born chef weaves Asian overtones into his Franco-Italian-inspired cooking, and while it's solidly good, the kitchen lacks discipline: some dishes clash or miss entirely - inexcusable at this price.
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Waxy O'Conner's
For the hungry, hard-drinkin' pub crowd. Includes a full fry-up, five pints, and carvery dinner in a windowless bar.
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Xia Wei Yang
Chinese hot-pot restaurant. Order everything raw, then boil it at the table. Begin with veggies to enrich the broth, then add the meat - they have everything from meat- and fish-balls to tendons, hearts and testicles (fear not: they also serve beef and chicken). Hardly anyone speaks English: plan to point.
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XVA Café
For a respite from Dubai's chaotic street scene, seek out this hidden gallery-cum-café in the courtyard of a 120-year-old house in the Bastakia Quarter. The all-veg cooking lists a mishmash of salads and grain-based dishes with vaguely Southeast Asian overtones. We especially like the mojardara (rice topped with sautéed veggies and yogurt) and the dense-green mint-lemonade - a must-order.
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Yalumba
One of the few to offer an a la carte menu so you won't have to schlep plates. Go whole-hog with vintage Bollinger champagne.
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Yum!
Though not as dynamic as Noodle House, it's a good pick for a quick bowl of noodles when you're wandering along the Creek - and you can be in and out in half an hour.
