Where to Lunch This Eid Al Adha in Dubai.

Amaya, The Dubai Mall

Some restaurants have a clear personality from the first dish. AMAYA is one of them, with its confident, varied menu, and the scale of its ambition.

Floor-to-ceiling windows frame the setting and the interior, with its warm, polished vibe, invites the kind of long afternoon that few restaurants do so well. We arrived with appetite and ambition, and the kitchen met both.

We ordered widely, which is exactly how AMAYA rewards you. The sushi was remarkable, as was the caviar appetiser. The brininess of the caviar lifting the sweetness of the prawns in a way that made the table go briefly quiet. That is always a
good sign.

The tacos that followed were well-balanced, and the steak was exactly what a good steak should be – tender and properly seasoned. Across a long stretch of dishes, nothing faltered. The mocktails deserve a mention of their own. Presented with real flair.
They were delicious and visually striking, arriving like small occasions in themselves.

Service throughout was warm and attentive, reading the table well. The afternoon moved at exactly the right pace. The Dubai viral chocolate dessert from the menu was the perfect end to the long lunch.

What AMAYA offers, ultimately, is a lunch that justifies the setting. The food is careful and consistent, the atmosphere genuinely relaxed, and the view remains one of the finest backdrops for a long meal anywhere in the city.

Suteki, Dubai Harbour 

Sutēki, which opened earlier this month at Harbour House, is not a Japanese restaurant in the conventional sense. It is, as its creators at AlphaMind Group describe it, a wagyu room, and the distinction matters from the moment you walk in.

The concept takes its cues from Tokyo’s contemporary dining culture, combining precision and creativity with Dubai’s appetite for high-impact hospitality. The interior reflects this duality: low lighting, warm wood and eclectic design details set the tone, while shades of red and orange add energy to the room, and art lines the walls without feeling overworked. It has the atmosphere of a gallery and the ease of a supper club — a combination that is harder to pull off than it sounds.

The menu is built entirely around wagyu beef, which either sounds like a constraint or a promise, depending on your appetite. In practice, it reads as confidence. Dishes range from raw preparations through to grilled signatures and reinterpretations, the approach deliberately edited to showcase the versatility of the meat. The grilled signatures are handled with the kind of discipline that modern Tokyo cooking demands: nothing overworked, nothing wasted.

The drinks programme includes more than 20 Japanese whiskies, alongside a considered selection of wine and sake. The cocktail list follows a more minimal direction, using Japanese ingredients to complement rather than compete with the food. It is worth exploring.

Sutēki is a focused, assured opening. For anyone willing to hand the evening over to a single, exceptional ingredient, it delivers handsomely.

SHI, Bluewaters Island 

Chinese fine dining in Dubai has found its footing, and SHI is among the restaurants leading the conversation. The Imperial Lunch, refreshed for Eid Al Adha, is a neat demonstration of why.

The experience opens with dim sum, and the kitchen handles the classics with care. The Prawn Har Gau arrives delicate and properly steamed, the Chicken Sheng Jian Bao delivers the textural contrast it promises — crisp base, yielding dough, clean filling,
and the Mixed Mushroom Dumpling is the kind of quietly confident dish that earns its place on any menu. The maki selection runs alongside, with the Goma Dragon Roll and Spicy Crab Roll offering bolder, more indulgent notes to balance the dim sum’s restraint.

Main courses cover the range well. The Australian Wagyu Beef with Black Pepper Sauce is the obvious centrepiece with its rich, well-handled, the sauce assertive without overwhelming the meat. The Black Cod with Black Bean Sauce is the more elegant
choice: silky, deeply savoured, the kind of dish that reminds you why the pairing is a classic. Dessert lands well too, with the Pistachio Fondant offering a warm, composed close to the afternoon. For an Eid afternoon spent well, SHI makes a convincing case.