Okku

The room is built around an L-shaped counter facing a shochu and sake wall that holds close to three hundred labels. The bartenders are trained in the kappo style: every drink built in front of you, every garnish prepared at the counter, every glass selected for the specific serve. The pace is deliberate and the room never feels rushed.

The omakase is an eight-cocktail tasting set against a small kaiseki menu, with each drink calibrated to follow the food. It is the best two-and-a-half hours of cocktail drinking in the country, and at AED 1,200 per person it is also the most expensive — but a reasonable price for what you receive. Walk-ins are accommodated at the counter when seats are open, where the standard cocktail list (built from Japanese spirits and house-fermented bases) is just as well executed.

Okku's signature is restraint. Drinks are colder, drier, and shorter than Dubai norms. The flavours are clean and the spirits are allowed to lead. If your reference point for a great cocktail bar is High Five in Tokyo or Bar Trench in Ebisu, Okku is the closest thing Dubai has to that lineage.