Abu Dhabi Emirati Dining Experience

Emirati food is the hardest cuisine to find in the Emirates. The restaurants are Lebanese, Indian, Iranian, Filipino and everything else, and what Emiratis actually eat at home is largely absent from the streets — which makes a proper Emirati meal one of the genuinely scarce things a visitor can do here.

This is that meal, served the traditional way: shared dishes on a low table, eaten together.

Expect machboos, the spiced rice with meat or fish that is the national dish, harees, thareed, and dates with gahwa — the cardamom coffee poured from a dallah into small cups, which has a whole etiquette of its own that somebody will explain.

The explanation is half of it. Food here carries the history of a pearling and Bedouin economy, and the dishes make more sense once you know what people were cooking with and why.

It suits anyone who has spent a week eating international hotel food and wants one meal that belongs to the country they are in.

Tell us any dietary requirement at booking — this is a set traditional menu rather than an à la carte kitchen, and substitutions have to be arranged in advance.