Eating is the Emirates’ favorite pastime, and whether you feel like Filipino or fusion, Lebanese or Lucknowi, you’ll find a restaurant catering to your tastes. Due to licensing restrictions, if you wish to wine as well as dine, you’ll have to eat in one of the hotels. Happily, restauranteurs have strived to create intimate, exciting eateries within hotels that will soon make you forget their corporate confines.

A good starting point is The Souk Madinat (971 4 366 8888, www.madinatjumeirah.com), a sprawling rabbit warren of restaurants, bars and shops.

Popular haunts in the complex include The Noodle House, a lively Asian joint; canalside Chinese Zheng He’s; and Pierchic, an out-to-sea fish restaurant on a custom-built wharf. If you’re after a taste of opulence, the Burj Al Arab’s Al Mahara (971 4 301 7648) is excellent, extortionate and accessible by a mock submarine. British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay’s Verre (971 4 227 1111) offers the best French fine dining in town. For a dry night of Middle Eastern cuisine, you can’t beat Fatafeet (971 4 397 9222), which boasts cheap, delicious Egyptian food and prime people-watching by the Creek.

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