Long's Bar

The name carries heritage intentionally. Long's Bar at Taj Dubai pays direct homage to the legendary Long Bar at Raffles Singapore, one of the most famous hotel bars in the world. The Dubai version does not attempt to replicate it physically, but it carries the same underlying premise: a hotel bar run with genuine seriousness, where classic cocktails receive the attention they deserve and the whisky collection is worth building an evening around.

The room sits on the ground floor of Taj Dubai's Burj Khalifa Boulevard tower, which means Business Bay's financial district delivers a dependable after-work crowd from 5pm onwards. The bar counter runs 14 seats in an arc, which creates the focused atmosphere that the best classic cocktail bars rely on. The team here rotates, but the programme remains consistent: the classics are made correctly, the seasonal menu is genuinely seasonal, and the whisky list at 200+ bottles skews toward single malts and bourbon with a thoughtful Asian whisky section that reflects the Taj group's provenance.

The live acoustic sessions from Wednesday to Saturday are gentler than many competing hotel bars, and they improve the atmosphere considerably without overwhelming conversation. This is not a venue that escalates into late-night territory the way Soho Garden does. Long's Bar is for the kind of evening that starts with a properly made Old Fashioned and ends with a glass of something interesting from the Scotch section.

If your Dubai itinerary includes time in Business Bay or the Downtown area, Long's Bar covers the classic cocktail category more thoroughly than most options nearby. It pairs naturally with dinner at any of the surrounding restaurants, or as a standalone two-hour stop. For more on the wider Dubai cocktail scene, see our Dubai cocktail bars guide, or read about the city's broader bar culture in our editors' Dubai guide.