Kabana — Restaurant in Dubai

So, picture this: You and your mom decide to treat yourselves to a nice meal at Kabana Restaurant in Jumeirah, Dubai. You’ve heard good things, and it’s supposed to be a lovely place, right? Well, the experience ends up being a complete disaster and a total slap in the face.

From the moment you walk in, the staff’s attitude is a mix of indifference and outright rudeness. The decor might be swanky, but the service is as cold as a desert night. You get seated and, despite your attempts to make polite conversation, it’s clear that the staff couldn’t care less about your presence. You’d think they were doing you a favor by letting you sit there.

When it’s time to order, you’re treated like an inconvenience. Your mom asks for a simple modification to a dish because of dietary restrictions, and the waiter acts like she’s asked for the moon. With a snide remark and an eye roll, they take your order, clearly annoyed. It’s not just rude; it’s downright disrespectful.

But that’s not even the worst part. After waiting what feels like an eternity, the food finally arrives, and it’s cold. Not just lukewarm, but ice-cold. You try to get the staff’s attention to address the issue, but they’re nowhere to be found. When you finally get their attention, they act like you’ve just ruined their day by daring to complain.

And then, out of nowhere, the manager shows up, looking like he’s been personally insulted by your existence. He doesn’t offer an apology or even a decent explanation. Instead, he dismisses your concerns with a wave of his hand and a smirk that says, “You’re not welcome here.” You and your mom are treated like pests, not paying customers.

To top it all off, you’re given the boot. That’s right—kicked out. No warning, no excuse, just a curt “Leave now” that makes it clear that Kabana Restaurant isn’t interested in actually serving its guests, just in showing off its facade of elegance.

So here’s the deal, Kabana Restaurant: your establishment is a disgrace. The service is atrocious, the staff are arrogant and unprofessional, and your whole operation reeks of pretension. You’ve managed to turn what should have been a pleasant evening into a humiliating ordeal. If you can’t treat your patrons with basic respect, then maybe you don’t deserve to be in business. Save yourself the trouble and shut your doors. You’ve made it abundantly clear that you’re not worth anyone’s...

Horrible, horrible service. We split the bill and as we were leaving, the waiter came with the bill and told us in a very rude tone to pay the remaining 6 aed of the bill as VAT. I told him that he should've charged us VAT the first time, and that its unacceptable that he's acting like that for 6 aed. He explained that it was VAT, and it wasn't added in the first bill, which really wasn't my problem. This wasn't about the extra 6 aed, thats pocket change, the problem was with the attitude of the server. Also, we had to ask for a water bottle 3 times before we actually got a bottle.

As for the food, I ordered a mexican chicken pizza, and my friend ordered a gourmet burger. Portions are massive, the burger was great, and the pizza was just ok. The pizza crust was nice, thick, and fluffy, I loved the dough. The toppings were just average, though I do appreciate that they used fresh ingredients. The burger was great, but it was also a simple burger, nothing special.

The ambience wasn't all that great either, the seats were reasonably comfortable but the music was way too loud, my friend and I could barely hear each other talking. Also, I would've appreciated it if there was a non-smoking area cause I don't smoke, and I don't mind the shisha but the tables are so close together that there was a plate of coal burning right next to me and it made me really hot and uncomfortable.

I can see the appeal of this place as a shisha hangout, but I don't smoke shisha and it's not my type of vibe at all. The biggest reason for my rating really was the service otherwise I would've given it a 3*.

P.S. the waiter later apologized on the phone after I complained to the manager but come on, that was a very...

My first visit to the place and here are my opinions of it. Firstly, the food was great, no question about it. We had the meat pollao with qabili rice, chicken tikka and shami kabab. However, google’s price estimation was way off ($$), should have been ($$$). The food was really overpriced in my opinion and so was the shisha. 130 per shisha and a replacement head costs 130? We went for the “vip shisha” for 200 which had a free replacement head just because we were planning to spend some time there. For the food we ended up paying 430 per person for the above mentioned dishes plus a salad. Why did I deduct 3 stars? Firstly, pollao came with very little rice and the waiter asked if we would need more. We said yes. Apparently, it wasn’t part of the meal and we were charged an extra 43 AED for a small plate of rice which I can only describe as a marginal addition to the original plate and should have been with the pollao in the first place. We were not informed that there would be an extra charge for it and the way the waiter asked us implied it was complimentary. Not that it would have mattered, as the rice was too little and we would have ordered it knowing the charge but it is the deception that really bothered me. The second and possibly most important reason was the flies (possibly because they keep the entry door open all the time). During the meal, a housefly landed right on top of the pollao and there were more than a few fruit flies all over. I wish I was fast enough to take a picture, as I would expect better hygiene at this price point. I ended up cutting off that part where the fly landed and...