Friday brunch in Dubai is less a meal than a social institution — the weekly gathering that defines the city’s expatriate community and has, over decades, developed into something approaching ritual. The format is simple: unlimited food, unlimited alcohol (where licensed), and four to five hours of eating, drinking, and the particular bonding that long lunches facilitate. The execution varies from adequate buffets to elaborate productions whose stations could rival trade shows. Brunch culture in Dubai began at hotel restaurants in the 1990s as a practical response to the city’s hospitality-industry workforce having Fridays off, then evolved into the city’s defining social ritual as the expatriate population grew. By the 2010s, brunch had become a verb (one “does brunch,” “did” a particular venue, “brunches” weekly with a regular crew), a calendar fixture, and the principal way new arrivals were folded into existing social circles.

We chose Zuma, whose Friday brunch has been voted Dubai’s best often enough to constitute consensus. The experience began at 12:30pm and ended, somewhat hazily, around 5pm. The food arrived in waves: sushi and sashimi, then robata dishes, then more sushi, then dessert, each course accompanied by champagne or sake or cocktails whose consumption no one seemed to be monitoring. By the third hour, the restaurant had transformed from a place people ate into a place people celebrated — birthday tables, hen parties, reunion gatherings, all lubricated by the bottomless glass. Zuma occupies the refined end of the spectrum: it is recognisably a serious restaurant doing brunch, rather than a brunch dressed up as a restaurant, and the quality of the sashimi and the robata dishes makes the pricing easier to accept than the supermarket-buffet alternatives at lesser venues.

The cost (AED 950 / £210 per person with premium champagne, though most operators now offer multiple tiers from AED 450 soft-drinks-only upwards) sounds excessive until you calculate what similar consumption would cost in London; the atmosphere is something money cannot replicate elsewhere. The institutional rival, Bubbalicious at the Westin Mina Seyahi, has been running for more than fifteen years and represents the party-brunch tradition at its scale-and-spectacle peak — three restaurants combined, a beachfront setting, unlimited Moët, and a level of festivity that makes Zuma look monastic. Saffron at Atlantis The Palm pushes the party further still, with themed nights and entertainment that turn brunch into something approaching a club afternoon. At the opposite end, Brasserie Boulud runs a deliberately civilised garden brunch with oysters, a proper cheese affinage, and a live jazz duo that suits travellers wanting the brunch ritual without the bottomless-Prosecco chaos.

The 2022 weekend shift complicated things. When the UAE moved from a Friday-Saturday weekend to a Saturday-Sunday one to align with international markets, the immediate question was whether brunch would survive. It has, with adaptations: some venues now run both Friday and Saturday brunches; others (Bubbalicious among them) moved entirely to Saturday; the religious significance of Friday remains, with most brunches pausing or rearranging during the noon Jumu’ah prayer window. The shift has, if anything, made the institution stronger by offering more options across both weekend days.

Friday brunch is Dubai’s acknowledgement that its expatriate majority needs social infrastructure, that a city of transient workers requires spaces where connection can happen. The religious significance of Friday (the Islamic day of rest) has been repurposed for secular communion — a transformation that some might find offensive and others find perfectly appropriate for a city that has always made its own rules. The behavioural excesses that defined the 2000s and early 2010s have moderated: a 2017 crackdown on intoxicated behaviour in taxis and at brunch venues ended the most aggressive party-brunch culture, and venues now actively pace service for guests who appear to be approaching their limits. The result is a brunch culture that has matured without losing its essential character: still long, still bottomless, still about community as much as cuisine, but recognisably more grown-up than the legendary excesses of a decade ago.

For visitors, brunch is one of the easiest ways to understand Dubai socially. Book a venue that suits your tolerance for spectacle (Bubbalicious for full Dubai, Brasserie Boulud for civilised, Zuma for refined-but-fun, Saffron for full party); dress smart-casual at minimum (most venues enforce a code, and Emirati guests at premium venues often dress more formally still); arrive on time, because seating is rarely flexible and the food rotation begins promptly; and pace yourself, particularly on the bubbles, because the afternoon is long and the rehydration costs the next day are real.