Key Takeaways
- Aroos Damascus Restaurant Dubai has three branches in UAE: Al Muraqqabat in Deira, Al Manara on Sheikh Zayed Road, and Al Qasimia in Sharjah.
- The Deira branch is the busiest, open from 7am to 4am, while the Al Manara branch, known for shisha, is the highest-rated, open from 6am to 2am.
- The Sharjah branch offers the cheapest menu with lower prices compared to the other two, making it a budget-friendly option.
- Popular dishes across the branches include mixed grill, hummus, and falafel, with specific favorites varying by location.
- Overall, Al Muraqqabat is great for late-night dining, Al Manara for high ratings and shisha, and Al Qasimia for cost-effective meals.
Aroos Damascus is a Syrian grill house that has been feeding Deira since long before Dubai had a restaurant scene worth arguing about. Google’s business listings show three UAE branches under the name: the large original on Al Muraqqabat Road in Deira, a Sheikh Zayed Road site at Al Manara, and one across the border in Al Qasimia, Sharjah. People go for charcoal grills and mezze at prices the rest of the city abandoned a decade ago, and because the Deira kitchen is still firing skewers at three in the morning.
Aggregator pages give you a star rating and leave you to work out the rest. Below is the branch-level detail: verified addresses and hours, Google ratings with review counts, and where the menus differ — because they do, quite a lot.
The three verified UAE branches
All three listings are claimed by the business and all three share the same unified UAE contact number, 600 500022 (+971 600 500022). The branches are not interchangeable: hours, prices and even the drinks list vary between them.
Al Muraqqabat, Deira — the original and the busiest
- Address: Green Palace Hotel, ground floor, Al Muraqqabat Road, Al Muraqqabat, Deira, Dubai
- Opening hours: 7am to 4am, every day
- Phone: +971 600 500022
- Google rating: 4.3 from 18,761 reviews
This is the branch that carries the name. Nearly 19,000 Google reviews puts it among the most-reviewed restaurants in the country, and the distribution is healthier than the 4.3 average suggests — 11,320 five-star ratings against 903 one-stars. It sits on the ground floor of the Green Palace Hotel near the Clock Tower, which is why directories variously file it under Deira, Al Muraqqabat and “opposite Boon Max Hotel”. They all mean the same room.
Listed facilities include outdoor seating, a private dining room, table service, delivery and takeaway, high chairs and a children’s menu, and wheelchair-accessible parking, entrance, seating and toilets. Parking is paid, in the lot and on the street — this is Deira, budget your patience accordingly.
Sheikh Zayed Road, Al Manara — the highest-rated one
- Address: Sheikh Zayed Road, Al Manara, Dubai
- Opening hours: 6am to 2am, every day
- Phone: +971 600 500022
- Google rating: 4.5 from 3,477 reviews
Smaller review count, better score, and the only branch of the three with a drive-through and a shisha list. It also opens earliest — 6am — which makes it the breakfast option. Google’s listing places it at Al Manara; Zomato indexes a Sheikh Zayed Road branch under Al Safa with the landmark “beside Royal Black Luxury Automobile”, so expect the neighbourhood label to shift depending on which map you’re reading. Parking here includes free lot and street options, which the Deira branch cannot offer.
Al Qasimia, Sharjah — the cheapest menu
- Address: Bin Rasheed Al Khoory Building, King Abdul Aziz Street, Al Nad, Hay Al Qasimiah, Sharjah
- Opening hours: 7am to 3am, every day
- Phone: +971 600 500022
- Google rating: 4.2 from 8,492 reviews
The Sharjah branch runs a 280-item menu at noticeably lower prices than Dubai, with counter service alongside table service and free parking. Live north of the creek and there is no argument for driving to Deira.
One thing we could not verify: several related searches point to an Aroos Damascus in Al Qusais, but no such branch appears in Google’s business listings at the time of writing. We are not going to publish an address we cannot confirm. The same applies to the “open 24 hours” claim floating around on some travel directories — Google’s verified hours for all three branches show a closing time, not round-the-clock service.
What to order, and what people actually mention
Google aggregates the dishes reviewers name most often, and the pattern is consistent across the group. At Al Muraqqabat, the most-cited items are mixed grill (399 mentions), hummus (370), falafel (321), manakish (177), fattoush (107) and fatteh (35). Sharjah reviewers name hummus, mixed grill, grilled meats, arayes, kunafa and garlic sauce. Al Manara skews differently — shisha is the single most-mentioned topic there, followed by fattoush, outdoor seating, mixed grill, kebabs and arayes.
Translated: order a mixed grill and a table of mezze, and follow the locals on arayes — grilled bread stuffed with minced meat — which is one of the few dishes that shows up on the mentions list at two separate branches. A TripAdvisor reviewer’s summary is as good a steer as any: “I tried the non veg platter so I could try many kababs in one.”
What it costs
Prices below come from the menus published on the branches’ own Google listings. They are not the same building to building.
Sharjah (Al Qasimia): Mixed Grill Aroos Damascus AED 44, lamb chops AED 57, kabab AED 40, shish tawook AED 38, arayees AED 32. Hommos AED 17, fattoush AED 21, fatteh with meat AED 27, lentil soup AED 13, kunaffa AED 18. A chicken shawarma sandwich is AED 7 and a zaatar manqusha AED 6.
Sheikh Zayed Road (Al Manara): Aroos Damascus mixed grill AED 56, mixed grill meat AED 60, mutton chop AED 70, tikka chicken AED 47, kabab AED 50, arayes AED 46. Hummus AED 25, fattoush AED 30, fatteh with meat AED 39, chicken shawarma plate AED 42, cheese man’oushe AED 7. Shisha is AED 75 across nearly the whole flavour list, AED 80 for Ajami, AED 40 for a top-up.
That is a real gap — roughly 25 to 40 per cent on grills for identical dish names. Zomato estimates AED 100 for two at Al Muraqqabat, which tracks with Sharjah’s pricing tier rather than Sheikh Zayed Road’s. Google publishes no menu for the Deira branch, so we will not quote Deira prices we cannot source.
The late-night case
This is where Aroos Damascus earns its reputation. The Al Muraqqabat kitchen runs until 4am daily — the latest of the three, and late enough that it already appears in our guide to late-night food in Dubai. Sharjah closes at 3am, Sheikh Zayed Road at 2am.
Google’s popularity data confirms the late-night traffic is real rather than theoretical. At Al Muraqqabat, Saturday peaks at 10pm and is still at 92 per cent of peak at 11pm, 63 per cent at midnight and 43 per cent at 1am. For the room at full volume, go between 9pm and 11pm. For a table without waiting, the same listing puts the quietest stretch at 8am to noon, around 13 to 15 per cent of peak — the argument for treating this as a breakfast restaurant, which Google also flags it as popular for.
Al Manara is calmer at every hour, peaking at 61 per cent on a Tuesday evening against Deira’s 89. Different mission, that branch.
People also ask
Why is Aroos Damascus famous?
Scale, longevity and hours. Visit Dubai describes it as a large restaurant serving authentic Arabic food and “bustling with guests until the late hours of the night”, and the review volume backs that up: 18,761 Google reviews at the Deira branch alone, with a further 8,492 in Sharjah and 3,477 on Sheikh Zayed Road. Very few restaurants in the UAE have been rated by that many people. Add a 4am closing time and grill prices starting in the AED 30s and the reputation explains itself.
What do people say about Aroos Damascus?
Google rates the Deira branch 4.3 from 18,761 reviews, Sharjah 4.2 from 8,492, and Sheikh Zayed Road 4.5 from 3,477 — so the Sheikh Zayed Road site scores best. At Deira, 11,320 of those reviews are five stars and 903 are one star. The dishes reviewers name most are mixed grill, hummus and falafel. A TripAdvisor review calls it “the nicest place for Syrian food in dubai. Lots of seating, good service and great food.”
What does Aroos Damascus on Sheikh Zayed Road have on their menu?
The Al Manara branch publishes a 20-section menu covering soups, cold and hot appetisers, a “Special Aroos Damascus” section built around fatteh, grills, oven platters, manakeesh, pastries, the house bread range, steaks, shawarma, poultry, fish, rice, pasta, sandwiches, juices, sweets, drinks and shisha. Highlights with prices: Aroos Damascus mixed grill AED 56, mutton chop AED 70, tikka chicken AED 47, kabab AED 50, arayes AED 46, hummus AED 25, fattoush AED 30, fatteh with meat AED 39, chicken shawarma plate AED 42, and shisha at AED 75. It is the only branch of the three with shisha on the list.
Which restaurant in Dubai is $2000 per person?
Not this one, and we are not going to guess. That question surfaces alongside Aroos Damascus searches because Google groups high-end and everyday Dubai dining queries together, but nothing in our sourced data identifies which venue it refers to, so we will not name one. For scale: at Aroos Damascus you can eat a chicken shawarma sandwich in Sharjah for AED 7, or roughly two US dollars.
The verdict
Go to Al Muraqqabat if you want the original room, the biggest menu of grills and a kitchen that will still feed you at 3.30am. Go to Al Manara if you want shisha, outdoor seating, a drive-through, easier parking and the highest Google score — and accept that you will pay 25 to 40 per cent more for the same skewers. Go to Al Qasimia if you are in Sharjah — same food, smaller bill. Book ahead for groups; all three listings flag reservations as recommended for lunch and dinner.
Ratings quoted throughout are Google user ratings with review counts, not What’s Hot in UAE editorial scores. Full menus and branch details are published on the restaurant’s own site at aroosdamascus.ae.
