What to eat Île D'Abu Dhabi? culinary specialties and gastronomy

In general, nothing opens before noon and lunch is usually around 1pm, dinner around 9pm. It is very rare that restaurants close during the week and the rush is at its peak between Thursday night and Saturday night.

To eat out on a budget, head to the old Abu Dhabi neighborhoods or to Al Ain or Liwa where you will find many kebabs and shawarmas. Alternatively, in the different areas of Abu Dhabi city and its malls you will also manage to find some food trucks and restaurants that are not too expensive. The best thing to do is to go for non-alcoholic meals, as the price can double. If you want to experience all the delights of Abu Dhabi's gastronomy, choose restaurants at lunchtime rather than in the evening: gourmet lunch menus are available for around 30 euros. Between 4pm and 6pm, it's often happy hour with two-for-one drinks! The range of great restaurants in Abu Dhabi is stratospheric but so are the prices in the evening!

Normally all menus indicate at the bottom of the page a 5% tax surcharge on all meals and tips are optional and at the discretion of the customer. There are no water carafes in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, so water is charged, but not bread.

You are always asked when you sit down if you want sparkling or still water, cold or room temperature, with a lemon or not. The kitchen is naturally very spicy. Even if you like chili peppers, don't take on the many Indians here: "little spicy" in Abu Dbabi could be translated as "very spicy" in French!

If you take Arabic coffee, take it with your right hand and not with your left. The left hand is considered impure. If you are not happy with the service or the quality; avoid raising your voice at all costs. Name calling is not acceptable. For Emiratis, it is important to remain calm in any situation.

Children are king in Abu Dhabi and families are welcome in most restaurants. However, up to the age of 21, the consumption of any alcoholic beverage is prohibited.

Smoking and non-smoking areas are generally available in the vast majority of restaurants and smoking is permitted on the terrace and outside.

There are few tourist catchers in Abu Dhabi. If sometimes the touts are in the middle of the street, they never insist much. On the other hand, cruise ships generally offer buffets that are more than average by Abu Dhabi standards.

In Abu Dhabi, the hours are very flexible, but let's just say that the day doesn't really start until 10am and the cafes are always full. Here, the key word is to take your time, no one really looks stressed. You won't see anyone running around let alone the Emirati population. They often linger and chat as if time was extensible, men with men, women with women, whether it's during the week or the weekend. If there are no "aperitif" traditions, it is mostly at the end of the evening, after dinner and quite late, that groups of friends meet again for tea and sometimes a shisha. As for the expatriate population, they go out in the numerous hotel bars, quite late at night, and generally from Wednesday to Saturday included. During Ramadan, the hours change. During the day, the establishments are not very busy and most of the places open after sunset and all night long.

Abu Dhabi is expensive, even for a coffee. Hotel bars are particularly expensive because of the high taxes on alcohol. Everywhere you can pay with a credit card and you can leave a tip of around 5-10%, although this is by no means a requirement.

Alcohol can only be consumed from the age of 21, and the legislation is very strict. It is difficult to enter bars under this age. Please note, however, that it is forbidden to consume alcohol on the public highway or in public spaces that are not regulated for it.

In the middle of the afternoon, one can find in all the neighborhood cafes, hotel lobbies and shopping malls, Emirati friends and families who come to have tea, coffee and especially to eat some pastries. It is also very popular to smoke a shisha as soon as the sun goes down. It is not uncommon to drink coffee until very late in the evening, because we do not go to bed early in the city. Remember that a large part of the population does not drink alcohol. It is absolutely necessary to try the coffees and dates, signs of the local hospitality.

Children are welcome everywhere except in the bars and there will be no exceptions.