Dubai Travel Guide: Best Luxury Hotels & Restaurants

2025-09-14 · By Splendid

Dubai does not arrive gradually. It appears from the aircraft window all at once: a coastline of improbable geometries, towers catching the sun from every angle, the desert pressing in at the edges as if reminding the city of what it came from. The experience on the ground is more considered than the skyline suggests. This is a city that has learned, over the last two decades, how to slow down.

ARRIVING

Emirates First Class is the natural way in. The private suites with closing doors, the bar that feels like a lounge at thirty thousand feet, and on arrival, the airline's First Class terminal, which is less an airport experience than a suggestion that travel could always be this way. For transfers on the ground, Blacklane handles the city with the same discretion.

SHANGRI-LA DUBAI

Perched on Sheikh Zayed Road with Dubai Mall minutes away and the full spread of the skyline visible from every upper room, the Shangri-La occupies a position that feels both central and removed. The interiors are harmonious in the way that genuinely considered hospitality tends to be: nothing competes, everything supports, the whole effect lands as calm.

The rooms face the city or the water, and both have their argument. By day the view is architectural, a lesson in ambition played out in glass and steel. By evening the towers light up in layers and the effect is something closer to spectacle. The balcony, widely considered the most photographed in the city, earns its reputation at golden hour.

WHERE TO DINE

INA at J1 Beach is where Chef Glen Ballis does his most confident work: flame-kissed sharing plates served in a retractable-roof pavilion that opens to the Gulf when the evening is right. The cooking is generous and precise in equal measure.

Sushisamba occupies level 51 of the Palm Tower, 230 metres above ground, with 360-degree views and a Nikkei menu that holds its own against the spectacle. Order the yellowtail and stay for the sunset.

Perched beside the turtle lagoon at Jumeirah Al Naseem, Flamingo Room brings African glamour to the Dubai dining scene with the kind of confidence that only Tasha Sideris could sustain. The interiors are lush and layered, all botanical prints and warm brass, and the menu draws from across the continent with dishes that are as vivid on the plate as the room is around them. It is a restaurant that photographs beautifully and eats even better.

WHERE TO SHOP

Cartier at Dubai Mall maintains a flagship with a discreet café hidden behind the salon, worth knowing about for a mid-afternoon pause. O'de Rose is among the city's pioneering concept stores, Collective Africa a glorious homage to the continent. Fashion Avenue and Level Shoes gather the world's marquee labels beneath a mile of marble for those who want everything in one place.

The Verdict

Dubai rewards the visitor who approaches it without assumptions. The city that exists on the ground is more nuanced, more hospitable, and more interesting than its reputation suggests. The Shangri-La gives you the best of its skyline and enough quiet to appreciate it. That combination, in a city moving this fast, is worth more than it sounds.

PhotographyAll photography by Splendid Magazine, captured on the Leica M Series and Apple iPhone 17 Pro.