LITTLE BLACK DOOR
The Conrad Dubai, Sheikh Zayed Road, Mezzanine 1, Hotel Lobby (side entrance)
knocktoenter.com
Little Black Door, at the base of a hotel and billed as a restaurant bar, is actually neither a hotel nor restaurant bar. You enter through – wait for it – a little black door and once inside you will find founder Yasin Saleh has gone against the grain with the design – there’s no gold in sight. We’d say it’s classically leaning, but not in the old-fashioned sense. There’s certainly nothing old-fashioned about the atmosphere – stay late and this place can really rock. Drinks are intelligent spins on classics and served on an impressive bar that runs the length of what is a large space. But this is no drinking hall. Indeed, the nooks and secret rooms of this place add to the experience – if you can find them. Little Black Door is an unexpectedly characterful bar that not only refuses to follow the rules of the Dubai bar scene, it likes to break them.
