Dubai is the kind of place where lavishness and restraint sit happily side by side. And nowhere is this more evident than in the city’s diverse food scene.

Nowhere in the world is more closely associated with sky-high thrills than Dubai – from the world’s tallest outdoor observation deck at the Burj Khalifa tower to the 150m-tall Dubai Frame, where a glass-floor walkway takes in views of humble ‘old Dubai’ to the north and the futuristic skyline of ‘new Dubai’ to the south. Then there’s the city’s preoccupation with all things rooftop – if the mood takes you, you can swim at altitude, quaff cocktails above the clouds and dine in the stratosphere. But on my first day in the glitziest of the seven United Arab Emirates, I want to stay in the shadows of skyscrapers and explore Dubai’s down-to-earth neighbourhoods to get a feel for its humbler roots.

Before the desert heat takes hold, I head north to the Deira district and the tangle of souks that flank Dubai Creek. It’s a lively place to tap into some intimate cultural experiences – and sample intriguing local snacks. Starting in the Spice Souk, where Ottolenghi fans would be in raptures over the many baskets of dried limes and sacks of sumac, I join a culinary walking tour with Frying Pan Adventures. It’s led by local Arva Ahmed, who swiftly ushers us past tacky tourist stalls dominating the entrance (so many plush camels!), and along a maze of passageways in search of the kind of hole-in-the-wall cafés and snack stalls we’d never be able to find on our own. In Dubai, says Arva, tea is the drink of the street whereas coffee is the drink of hospitality, so our first stop is at the unassuming Khalifa Waleed Cafeteria for a cup of karak chai, a sweet but strong milky tea, and a hot and flaky parotta flatbread. Before being rolled and wrapped, it’s spread with cream cheese, lined with egg, doused with hot sauce and scattered with crushed Chips Oman – chilli-flavoured crisps with a nostalgic cult following across the UAE. It sounds weird, but works. 

Next is Al Shaiba Bakery – little more than a rudimentary tandoor oven in a wall – for made-to-order cheese and za’atar stuffed bread that emerges from the tandoor puffed, golden and glistening with melted ghee. In the neighbouring glittering Gold Souk, just as the relentless heat is threatening to engulf us, we escape the heaving streets into the air-conditioned bliss of Al Nassma, a camel-milk chocolate shop, where we sample truffles made with the milk of pampered camels owned by Dubai’s ruling royal family. Back outside, we leave streets lined with jewellery stores and emerge in an unremarkable square that’s not so much paved with gold as cracked concrete, dusty gravel and discarded cigarette ends. Arva rolls out a mat, we perch on collapsible plastic stools and watch scruffy pigeons scratching about in the gravel. This is not the Dubai you see plastered all over Instagram – and that’s what makes it exciting. We pass around a popular sweet-and-savoury snack combo fafda jalebi from Avon Restaurant, an eatery that’s spent 30 years serving vegetarian Indian street food to Indian jewellers working in the souks. The fafda – deep-fried gram flour crackers seasoned with asafoetida and black pepper, then dipped in green chutney – are simple and satisfying, but you’ll risk a dental emergency biting into kesar jalebi, golden swirls of crisp batter drenched in a saffron-infused sugar syrup. After the tour, we cross the waterway in a traditional wooden abra boat and disembark in Bur Dubai for a stroll through its Textile Souk, which is thrumming with life and sewing machines. Amid colourful stalls of Aladdin-style slippers and hand-woven fabrics, tiny children play a game of chase – it’s a total sensory overload.

Next day, we return to Bur Dubai and the historic Al Fahidi neighbourhood to delve further into the city’s past. Before tourism, Dubai made its money with oil, which was first discovered in the 1960s. But before oil, fishing, farming and pearl diving were Dubai’s main trades, and this district offers a snapshot of what life was like in Dubai for early traders who settled as residents. We wander streets that give a real feel for how things once were, admiring perfectly preserved houses built with coral, gypsum, limestone and sandalwood. Here, amid the minarets and wind towers – Iranian chimney-like structures used for ventilation – we stop by the Coffee Museum and enjoy half a cup. It’s customary in Emirati homes, we learn, to welcome guests with a half-filled cup – a gesture which encourages returning for a top-up – and to proffer sticky dates instead of sugar. To gain a deeper understanding of Emirati culinary traditions, we take a cooking class at the nearby Al Khayma Heritage Restaurant. In a shaded courtyard we attempt to make an appetiser of regag: paper-thin bread cooked like a crêpe and folded with an array of savoury fillings – from fish sauce to crushed Chips Oman. It’s hard to stop nibbling away at them as the ever-smiling, ever-patient chef Dasul leads us to our rooftop cooking stations to make the main course. He valiantly wrangles parasols, fetches water bottles and even wheels out an air-con unit to keep us from wilting in the blazing heat – all while guiding us through the steps needed to make chicken machboos, an Emirati dish similar to biryani. Standing behind the cooking stations like a conductor at the helm of an orchestra, Dasul is barely visible through clouds of steam billowing from stockpots, but he doesn’t skip a beat or break a sweat, even when the rest of us are flagging. Later, down in the cool courtyard, staff dressed in traditional robes bring our finished results to the table. It’s a cracking dish – tender chicken covered with spiced rice topped with crispy onions and fried raisins (a taste revelation!) – that could easily feed a family of four, but that doesn’t stop us ordering plentiful sides of fattoush salad and minted labneh. Later, we even manage luqaimat, sweet cloud-like dough balls dipped in date syrup and topped with sesame seeds.

A few days spent in Dubai’s souks and surrounding neighbourhoods has turned me on to the fact that there are plenty of food experiences here that lean more towards simple pleasures than flashy plates. But outside of the souks, it’s the city’s most creative expat chefs (and not the expected fly-in celebrity chefs) who are driving the dining scene in Dubai, and making names for themselves in the process. One such restaurant is Orfali Bros Bistro, the brainchild of three talented Syrian brothers Mohammad, Wassim and Omar, which has just taken the 46th slot in the World’s Top 100 restaurants. Their Levantine food with a twist, cooked from a double-storey open kitchen overlooking diners, is exciting, innovative and perhaps most importantly, delicious. When the food arrives, the table falls quiet, mostly out of respect for the craft and ingenuity that’s gone into each plate. The food really is faultless – from a Thai-style pomelo salad to wagyu beef dumplings and dream-like desserts – and while the plates are designed for sharing, it’s with reluctance that we do so. Also making its mark is Avatara. It’s hard to stand out from the 13,000 restaurants Dubai has, but chef Rahul Rana is succeeding with the city’s first and only vegetarian fine dining experience – the day before we dine there, it’s rightly awarded a Michelin star. Avatara’s 16-course a safari. Rehydrate with watermelon juice then follow with ful medames served with fried eggs, labneh, houmous, halloumi and flatbreads. tasting menu, defined as a reincarnation of soulful Indian food, starts with naivedhya, or a holy offering, which sets the tone for what’s to come.

The bite-size appetiser, garnished with edible flowers and presented in a flamboyant peacock- shaped bowl, contains panchamrita, a sweet nectar typically offered in temples, and literally explodes in the mouth thanks to tiny rocks of popping sugar. The courses that follow are a lesson in how to honour humble vegetables. Each dish is accompanied by a story, told passionately by a parade of Avatara’s servers and chefs, including Rahul himself. Interestingly, he has completely removed garlic and onion – commonly used in Indian cuisine – from the menu, so as to not overpower more delicate flavours. Also impressing Michelin is BOCA in the financial district – on the day we visit, the staff are giddy with the news that it’s been awarded a green star for its sustainability commitment. And it’s clear to see why. Executive chef Patricia Roig’s food is outstanding – a favourite dish is a bowl of strawberry gazpacho – and her zero-waste approach really drives the team’s creativity. Dubai detractors often cite the city’s lack of green credentials as a reason to not embrace it, so it’s heartening to see a restaurant changing things for the better by running on 100% renewable energy, appointing it own ‘waste officer’, and using local ingredients such as UAE desert plants across its menu

It’s hard to imagine that only 60 or so years ago life in the Emirates was nomadic, but the use of native plants at BOCA is a reminder that just beyond the city limits is a seemingly endless stretch of desert and dunes, protected in part by a government-led commitment to preserving the region’s natural beauty. Taking a safari tour with Platinum Heritage allows visitors to see the protected region up close, so we carve out time to head to the dunes at daybreak with guide Ibrahim. En route, he has our full attention with tales of the Bedouins who once roamed the region and the desert plants that formed their diets. But the minute we’re behind the gates of the conservation reserve, he’s lost us. The scene is so majestic, even the shock of an early start without caffeine loses its sting. I don’t know if it’s the shifting sands, the fun of being wrapped, Lawrence of Arabia-style, in a billowing headscarf, or the sight of rare Arabian oryx, bleached white by the sun, but we are engrossed in snapping pics. Even Ibrahim gives up pointing out which plants were poisonous to the Bedouins and which were not, hanging back patiently by his Land Rover and piping up only to offer to take pics for us.

Whether you’re snaking through souks, trudging desert dunes or simply getting from A to B in this humid city, having a comfortable hotel for refreshing on repeat is a must. We’re staying at the Dubai outpost of German boutique chain 25hours, which blends nomadic influences with modern luxe. The rooms are quirky and extravagant, but the hotel’s foyer and communal spaces are what command attention. More art space than hotel space, there are works to admire at every turn. In the lifts, dioramas by German artist Sandra Havemeister feature miniature figurines in Dubai settings. In the double-height foyer, there are tapestry-wrapped cocoon chairs by Chilean artist Muriel Gallardo Weinstein and a fountain topped with a globe emblazoned with London-Iraqi artist Marwan Shakarchi’s signature clouds. Up on top, it’s exactly what you’d expect of a Dubai hotel, with a rooftop infinity pool overlooking the metallic structure of the Museum of the Future, a chic bar, cool shisha garden and wellness centre, where I emerge floating after a treatment with resident masseuse Mani. Restaurants include Ernst Biergarten, a nod to the hotel’s German roots, which serves Bavarian classics like spätzle and bratwurst. Here, I sit down to a schnitzel before departing for the airport – it’s a perfectly good schnitzel, but it seems the Emirati warmth of old Dubai has rubbed off, as my mind wanders back to those souks and their one-dirham snacks. Oh, what I wouldn’t give for a Chips Oman roll to see me on my way home