Dubai Restaurant Week returns

Dubai Restaurant Week will run from May 1 to May 17, with more than 125 restaurants offering fixed-price menus across the city. (visitdubai.com) The official event page says lunch menus are priced at AED125 and dinner menus at AED250, and bookings are being handled through Careem DineOut. (visitdubai.com) Organizers said this year’s lineup spans more than 25 cuisines and includes over 30 restaurants listed in the MICHELIN Guide, including one one-star venue. (zawya.com) The chef roster in promotional materials includes Nobu Matsuhisa, Gordon Ramsay, Izu Ani, Alvin Leung, Akira Back, Kelvin Cheung and Hadrien Villedieu, alongside homegrown concepts such as Girl & The Goose by Gabriela Chamorro. (zawya.com) The event arrives as Dubai keeps expanding its fine-dining credentials. The fourth MICHELIN Guide Dubai selection, published in 2025, listed starred, Bib Gourmand and selected restaurants across the city. (guide.michelin.com) That guide marked another step in Dubai’s push to turn restaurant prestige into a tourism draw, with the city promoting both celebrity-chef brands and locally built concepts through official visitor channels. (guide.michelin.com, visitdubai.com) Local coverage has described the 2026 edition as a broad citywide showcase rather than a single-neighborhood festival, with participating venues ranging from premium casual dining to high-end hotel restaurants. (gulfnews.com) For diners, the format compresses a large part of Dubai’s restaurant scene into a 17-day booking window with standardized menu prices. For Dubai, it puts a tourism-friendly price tag on restaurants that are usually sold on chef names, hotel addresses and guidebook status. (visitdubai.com, zawya.com)