Business Bay Dubai Restaurants: 7 Compared, From AED 75

Which Business Bay restaurants publish a business lunch price?

Seven restaurants in Business Bay publish the price of their business lunch on their own website. In ascending order: Open Sesame at Hotel Indigo Dubai Downtown (AED 75), Alphorn at the Revier Hotel (AED 79), ROKA at The Opus by Omniyat (AED 95) and Nine7One at Anantara Downtown Dubai (AED 99), then Fi’lia at SLS Dubai (from AED 105), Bombay Brasserie at Taj Dubai (AED 125) and SFUMATO at Opus Tower (from AED 135).

Nine more restaurants in the same district advertise a business lunch and publish no price for it. That is the finding: of the sixteen Business Bay restaurants that say they serve one, fewer than half tell you what it costs before you sit down.

Everything below was read on the restaurant’s or the hotel’s own site on 13 September 2026, from Bay Square, Building 12 on Marasi Drive — that’s us, and we are the point distances are measured from, not an entry in the list.

Every price read on the operator’s own website, 13 September 2026. Excludes 5% VAT.

How did we rank these?

On one criterion the restaurant controls: the price of its midday set menu, as published on its own website. Cheapest first; where a venue publishes several tiers we rank it on the lowest and give the rest in its entry.

Three things this ranking deliberately does not use, and it is fairer to say so than to invent them. No Google ratings — reading them needs an access to Maps we do not have, and a rating you cannot source is worse than none. No walking times in minutes — the plausible “7 minutes’ walk” in most district guides is a line on a map, not a pavement, so we give distance bands built from the addresses venues publish themselves. No opinion on the food — we have not eaten these lunches. Nothing here is tasted, visited or reviewed; it is compared, on what each business chose to make public, and a restaurant that does not suit is left out rather than placed last with a comment attached.

What it does test is worth knowing about somewhere you are about to take a client: whether it will tell you the bill in advance.

Which Business Bay business lunches cost under AED 100?

1. Open Sesame — AED 75, and five hours to use it

Hotel Indigo Dubai Downtown publishes a two-course business lunch at AED 75 and a three-course at AED 95, both with a juice and a speciality coffee or tea, Monday to Friday from noon to 5pm. The hotel is on Marasi Drive, in Business Bay, despite the word Downtown in its name.

It is the cheapest published price in the district by AED 4, and its window is five hours against the two at Nine7One — which matters when the morning meeting overruns. The same page prices the whole week, which is more transparency than any other venue here manages.

2. Alphorn — AED 79, seven days a week

The Revier Hotel publishes a business lunch at AED 79 at its Alphorn restaurant, daily from 12pm to 3.30pm — a buffet of soups, salads and desserts plus one main, which the hotel calls a two-course menu. Al Asayel Street, Business Bay; the property is also branded Barceló Business Bay.

It is one of only two served every day of the week. If your client flies in on a weekend, the list is Alphorn and Fi’lia, and nothing else with a published price.

3. ROKA — AED 95, and the tier the listings sites skip

ROKA publishes a Donburi Express at AED 95 per person — iceberg salad, a donburi of your choice, pickles — Sunday to Friday, noon to 3pm, at The Opus by Omniyat, Level 1. Classic and Premium Teishoku sets appear on the same page at AED 125 and AED 180.

The round-ups we checked quote ROKA at “AED 125 or AED 180” and omit the AED 95 tier. Its own page leads with it, and that omission alone moves ROKA to third.

4. Nine7One — AED 99 for four courses, in two hours

Anantara Downtown Dubai publishes “AED 99 for four course business lunch” at Nine7One, Monday to Friday, 12.30pm to 2.30pm. Four courses for AED 99 is the densest plate-per-dirham here, and the two-hour window the tightest.

One caution, from the hotel’s own site. Its restaurants page advertises a separate “Lavish Business Lunch” from AED 115, and Nine7One is not in that page’s venue list at all. Two live pages, two offers, one venue missing from the directory: confirm which is running before you book.

Which ones cost between AED 100 and AED 135?

5. Fi’lia — from AED 105, the other seven-day option

SLS Dubai publishes a business lunch at Fi’lia “starting from AED 105”, daily from 12.30pm to 3pm, on Marasi Drive. It is a Michelin Guide selected restaurant, and the page also prices a four-course sharing menu at AED 545 per couple.

“From” is doing some work there, and the page does not say how many courses it buys. It is still a published number, which puts it ahead of nine restaurants here.

6. Bombay Brasserie — AED 125, one click deeper than the menu

Taj Dubai publishes a Thali lunch, vegetarian and non-vegetarian, at AED 125 per person, Monday to Friday 12.30pm to 3pm, on Burj Khalifa Street.

The small lesson of the exercise. The Taj’s dining index lists five restaurants and prices none; the AED 125 sits one click further in, on Bombay Brasserie’s own page. We opened every restaurant page we could find, and for the nine below there was nothing.

7. SFUMATO — from AED 135, and no booking needed

SFUMATO Gastro Atelier publishes “2 or 3 courses from AED 135”, Monday to Friday from noon, at Opus Tower. It is the only one of the seven to state walk-in service with no booking required — the difference between a lunch you can decide on at 12.40pm and one you cannot.

It is also the highest published figure here, 1.8 times the AED 75 at the bottom — 2.4 times counting ROKA’s AED 180 Premium, for the same hour of the same day in the same district.

Which restaurants advertise a business lunch and publish no price?

Nine, read on their own pages the same day. Each advertises a business lunch or a set midday menu, and none publishes what it costs.

Read on each operator’s own site, 13 September 2026. “PDF only” = a menu file is linked, the page itself shows no figure.

This is not a criticism of the food. It is about what a page does for the person reading it at 11.50am with a client arriving at one. Two of the nine at least link a menu PDF; downloading a file to learn the price of lunch is better than nothing and worse than a line of text.

Why does a listings site so often disagree with the restaurant?

We checked the seven prices against the Dubai business-lunch round-ups that rank highest for the term. On six entries the two disagree, and every time it is the restaurant telling the truth about its own menu.

Both sides read the same morning, 13 September 2026.

The pattern is not random: a listings page is a snapshot of a promotion at the moment somebody typed it up, and a restaurant that changes its menu does not tell twenty aggregators. Two of the six point the wrong way for the diner — Nine7One is AED 11 to AED 26 cheaper than advertised, ROKA AED 30 — and one sends you somewhere shut. Open the venue’s own page before you commit: thirty seconds, and it moved two of the seven entries here.

Which restaurants did we leave out, and why?

Seven, none of them on quality. Every exclusion below is a fact about a page or an address.

• Carna by Dario Cecchini (SLS Dubai, 74th floor) — temporarily closed on SLS’s own page, which points guests to Smoke & Mirrors instead.
• MEDA Tapas & Bar (Taj Dubai) — temporarily closed on the Taj’s dining page, and still listed elsewhere at AED 115.
• Asia Asia (Renaissance Business Bay Hotel, Al Abraj Street) — temporarily closed on Marriott’s page.
• il Pastaio — publishes AED 140 for a weekly three-course set menu, Monday to Friday noon to 4pm. Excluded on address: its own site gives Al Habtoor City, Sheikh Zayed Road.
• Sirali — quoted at AED 159 by a listings site. We found no operator website, only delivery and directory pages.
• PizzaExpress Live (DoubleTree by Hilton — Business Bay) — PizzaExpress UAE publishes a “Power Lunch” at AED 29, weekdays noon to 4pm, naming no branch; a listings site gives AED 58 for this one. Neither figure is branch-verified.
• Prime68 and Kitchen6 (JW Marriott Marquis, Sheikh Zayed Road) — the hotel’s dining page lists ten outlets today and Prime68 is not one. Kitchen6 publishes lunch only on Saturday and Sunday, 1pm to 4pm.

Of the twenty-three Business Bay venues we opened, seven could not be ranked — three because they are closed.

Why are the cheapest ones inside hotels called Downtown?

Because Business Bay sits against Downtown, and the hotels on its canal edge took the neighbour’s name rather than their own address. It decides which results you see.

Hotel Indigo Dubai Downtown publishes Marasi Drive, Business Bay — and serves the cheapest lunch on this list. Anantara Downtown Dubai calls itself, in its own FAQ, “located on the banks of Dubai Canal in Business Bay” — and serves the fourth. The St. Regis Downtown Dubai publishes Marasi Drive too. That is two of the seven priced lunches and two more of the unpriced nine inside hotels whose name says Downtown. It runs the other way on the same street: Marriott today calls the property at Al Abraj Street Renaissance Business Bay Hotel, while much of the web still files it under Renaissance Downtown.

So a search for Downtown Dubai returns Business Bay venues, and a search for Business Bay misses hotels three hundred metres from Bay Square. We hit the mirror image writing up the cafés of Downtown Dubai, where two of the most-listed “Downtown” cafés are in Al Quoz and Trade Centre 1. Read the address line, never the venue name.

What can you eat inside Bay Square itself?

Sixteen outlets, every one publishing its opening hours, none publishing a business-lunch price. Bay Square is the low-rise block on Marasi Drive where our address sits — Building 12 (that’s us).

Hours as published by Bay Square, read 13 September 2026.

Five open at 7am and four more at 8am — the number that matters if you are at a desk before the city is. Only Wok of Fame advertises anything like a business lunch: specials and a buffet, no price, closing at 4pm and reopening at 5pm.

The honest answer: excellent for a fast lunch at a desk, and nowhere in it will tell you in advance what hosting a client costs.

How far is each of these from a desk in Business Bay?

In bands, not in minutes. Five of the sixteen publish no street address at all — only “Business Bay” or a post-office box — so a minute count would be invented for a third of the list. From Bay Square, Building 12:

• Same square. The sixteen Bay Square outlets. No street to cross.
• Same street, Marasi Drive. Open Sesame (Hotel Indigo), Fi’lia (SLS Dubai), BASTA! (St. Regis Downtown), FireLake (Radisson Blu Waterfront), China Tang (The Lana Promenade) — five of the sixteen, two of them priced, on the road our front door is on.
• The Opus block. ROKA, SFUMATO and The Maine Land Brasserie, all in the Opus and ME by Meliá complex, which publishes “Business Bay” without a street.
• Named streets elsewhere. Bombay Brasserie and The Eloquent Elephant on Burj Khalifa Street, Alphorn on Al Asayel Street, Paparazzi Tuscan on Al Mustaqbal Street, the JW Marriott Marquis outlets on Sheikh Zayed Road.

The shape that matters: the priced lunches cluster on the canal side. From Bay Square, Marasi Drive is a walk and Sheikh Zayed Road is a car — worth as much as the rent when you pick where to put a desk, which is the logic behind coworking in Business Bay and parking in Downtown Dubai.

When does a meeting room beat a business lunch?

When the meeting matters more than the meal. The arithmetic is not close.

Four people at the cheapest published business lunch here is AED 300 before tax, AED 315 paid with 5% VAT. The same four at SFUMATO is AED 540, or AED 567 paid. A meeting room for up to eight at our Business Bay address (that’s us) is 120 AED an hour: two hours is AED 240, AED 252 paid, for a room with a door and no service at 1.15pm.

Oh My Desk rates, Business Bay. VAT of 5% is added at payment.

It cuts both ways, and this is where a restaurant wins. A first meeting with someone you have never met is better over food; a table and a whiteboard is not where you build rapport. A signature or a renegotiation is better in the room. The two are not exclusive either — all seven lunches stop by mid-afternoon because everybody goes back to a desk.

What the room buys that the restaurant cannot is control of the clock and of the noise. Coworking members get one meeting-room hour a month included and a private office six — three of these meetings at no extra cost. Renting a meeting room in Dubai by the hour is the cheaper half of this comparison, and a day pass at 120 AED keeps your visitor at a desk afterwards.

FAQ: 10 quick answers

1. What is the cheapest business lunch in Business Bay? Open Sesame at Hotel Indigo Dubai Downtown, on Marasi Drive: AED 75 for two courses and AED 95 for three, Monday to Friday noon to 5pm, juice and a speciality coffee or tea included. It is the cheapest of the seven that publish a price, and has the longest window of the seven.

2. How much does a business lunch cost in Business Bay Dubai? Between AED 75 and AED 135 across the seven restaurants that publish a figure, before the 5% VAT added at payment. ROKA goes higher up its own menu: AED 95, AED 125 and AED 180. All read on each restaurant's own site on 13 September 2026.

3. Which Business Bay restaurants publish their lunch price? Seven: Open Sesame (AED 75), Alphorn at the Revier Hotel (AED 79), ROKA at The Opus (AED 95), Nine7One at Anantara Downtown (AED 99), Fi'lia at SLS Dubai (from AED 105), Bombay Brasserie at Taj Dubai (AED 125) and SFUMATO at Opus Tower (from AED 135).

4. Is there a business lunch in Bay Square? Wok of Fame advertises business lunch specials and a buffet at Bay Square and publishes no price for either. Bay Square lists sixteen food and drink outlets with their opening hours, and not one publishes a business-lunch price. The nearest priced set lunch is across Marasi Drive.

5. What time is business lunch served in Business Bay? Most of the seven start at noon or 12.30pm and stop at 3pm. The widest window is Open Sesame's, noon to 5pm on weekdays; the narrowest is Nine7One's, 12.30pm to 2.30pm. Only Alphorn and Fi'lia serve theirs every day of the week.

6. Does ROKA Business Bay do a business lunch? Yes. ROKA publishes a Donburi Express at AED 95 per person — iceberg salad, a donburi of your choice and pickles — Sunday to Friday, noon to 3pm, at The Opus by Omniyat, Level 1. Classic and Premium Teishoku sets are published at AED 125 and AED 180.

7. Is Carna by Dario Cecchini at SLS Dubai open? Not on 13 September 2026. The SLS Dubai page for Carna, on the 74th floor, says the restaurant is temporarily closed and points guests to Smoke & Mirrors. MEDA Tapas & Bar at Taj Dubai and Asia Asia at the Renaissance also show as temporarily closed on their own hotels' pages.

8. Are Business Bay and Downtown Dubai the same place for restaurants? No, and hotel names make it worse. Hotel Indigo Dubai Downtown, Anantara Downtown Dubai and The St. Regis Downtown Dubai all publish Business Bay addresses, while the property once listed as Renaissance Downtown now calls itself Renaissance Business Bay.

9. Where can I host a client in Business Bay without booking a restaurant? A meeting room. At Oh My Desk in Bay Square Building 12 (that's us) a room for up to eight is 120 AED an hour, so two hours is 240 AED against 300 AED for four people at the cheapest published business lunch. Private office members have six hours a month included.

10. Do Business Bay business lunch prices include VAT? Read the small print on each page. UAE VAT is 5%, so a AED 75 set menu is AED 78.75 at the till if the published figure is net, and service charges are quoted differently from one venue to the next. None of the seven pages we read spelled it out.

What to do with this list

It is a price list, not a restaurant review. Seven Business Bay restaurants tell you what their business lunch costs before you arrive, nine do not, and three well-known names are shut and still being recommended. Everything was read on 13 September 2026 — open the venue’s own page before you book, because on two of these seven the listings sites were wrong today.

If you need somewhere to put a client at midday and somewhere to work either side of it, we are the low building on Marasi Drive with the fountain in front. Oh My Desk Business Bay, Bay Square Building 12, P Floor: coworking from 950 AED a month, a private office from 5,800, meeting rooms for eight at 120 AED an hour, reception Monday to Friday 9am to 6pm, member access 24/7. The tour is free.