The best Friday brunches in Dubai (the ones that are not a tourist trap)

Brunch in Dubai has, for the longest time, been the city's most expensive way to spend a Saturday afternoon. The price has crept up while the quality has not, and the AED 700 brunches are now mostly buying you a photo wall and a queue for the dessert station.

The seven below are what I actually book. Six are honestly good food, one is the cheap option, and one is a Sunday roast that I refuse to leave off the list because it is genuinely a top-five meal in this city.

I keep notes on which restaurants are running new brunch menus on Rifio — the Dubai weekly digest will surface launches as they happen.

1. Trèsind Studio

The tasting-menu brunch at Trèsind Studio is the most thoughtful sitting in the city. AED 750 a head, no buffet, no station, just a 12-course menu paced by the kitchen.

It is more expensive than every brunch on this list, and yet it works out cheaper per-quality-of-bite than most of the AED 500 hotel brunches you will be tempted by. Saturday only, two sittings, book three weeks ahead.

2. BB Social DIFC

If I am picking one brunch a month, it is this one. AED 295 a head, Asian small plates, a calm room, no DJ. The food is properly cooked — the bao is excellent, the dumplings are not the freezer kind, the roast duck is roasted that morning.

Saturday brunch from 1pm. Bottomless package adds AED 195, which is fine value if you drink. The crowd is locals, finance, a few founders. Not a single bachelorette party.

3. COYA Dubai

The Four Seasons JBR rooftop. AED 425 plus AED 250 for the Pisco package. This is the party brunch on the list — it gets loud after 3pm, the DJ is part of the deal, the small plates are excellent the whole way through.

Order the ceviche, the suckling pig, the bream. The room is one of the most beautiful in the city.

4. Time Out Market

Souk Al Bahar, opposite Dubai Mall. Not a brunch in the AED 500 sense — there is no package, no drinks deal, no DJ. But you can eat well from three counters, sit at a communal table, and walk out for AED 150 to 200 a head.

Saturdays get busy, Fridays are calmer. The ramen counter is the move, the wood-fired pizza is a strong second.

5. Cé La Vi Sunday Roast

Yes, Sunday, not Friday. The Sunday roast at Cé La Vi is one of those bits of Dubai brunch culture nobody outside the city knows about — a proper British roast, AED 380 a head, served from 1pm with the Burj straight out the window.

The Yorkshire puddings are correctly sized. The gravy is correctly thickened. There is a roast trolley. It is, frankly, ridiculous and excellent.

6. Sushisamba Saturday

The Saturday rooftop sushi brunch at Sushisamba is a different format — there is a buffet element which I would normally ignore, but the rolls are made to order at the bar and the rolls are the reason to be there.

AED 395 a head. Get the bar seats if you can, watch the chefs work, ignore the buffet entirely. Bottomless adds AED 295.

7. Zuma DIFC Saturday lunch

Not advertised as a brunch, which is the point. The Saturday set lunch at Zuma DIFC is AED 350 a head for a four-course tasting that is, by Zuma standards, a quiet bargain. The room at 1pm on a Saturday is half-full of the same DIFC people who were at the Penrose on Tuesday.

It is the most grown-up version of a Dubai brunch. No DJ, no station, no queue.

A few things I am leaving off and you might wonder why.

The Atlantis brunch, the headline Marina hotel brunches, and any brunch that advertises on the back of a taxi: these are not bad food, exactly, but they are not the meal the price is asking you to believe in. AED 700 a head should buy you something genuinely special. These do not.

Bottomless packages are tempting and mostly cost-effective if you drink four-plus glasses. If you drink one glass of wine and a coffee, pay à la carte. The brunches above are honest with their pricing — what you are charged is broadly what the food and drink are worth, which is not always true at the headline brunches.

On the timing: most of these run from 1pm to 4pm on Saturday. The honest brunch starts at 1, peaks at 2:30, and is wrapping up by 4. If a brunch is still going at 5, you are not at a brunch any more, you are at a daytime club.

Save the ones you fancy on Rifio so you can find them again — the Dubai events page covers most of the venues that run special brunch nights.