When the folks at Zero Gravity Beach Club and Restaurant got in touch to ask us to review their venue, the marketing materials they sent over touted them as “Dubai’s best kept secret” — and they weren’t lying. I’ve lived five minutes away in Dubai Marina ever since its initial trial opening for the World Parachuting Championships in 2012, not to mention its official opening after Ramadan 2013, and remained completely unaware of the venue’s existence. Now I know it’s there I’ll definitely be going back.
The venue offers a full à la carte menu in its relaxed, modern two-tier bar and restaurant overlooking the landing zone of SkyDive Dubai, with the upstairs bar screening major sporting events, while a reduced menu focusing on wraps, pizzas and so on is served on the beach itself.
We opted to sit on the restaurant terrace to eat before heading down to spend the afternoon catching some rays on the pristine and pleasantly uncrowded private beach. Starters of chilled prawns and seafood soup were eagerly gobbled up, and extra marks were given for presentation — my chilled prawns with seafood sauce and salad may, at heart, have been that perennial 70s dinner party favourite prawn cocktail, but the chef had arranged them on my plate with real love and the prawns were fresh, juicy and tasty, too.
My fillet steak was a tender, tasty cut — I opted for the smaller, 200g option with a side salad so as not to be too full for the afternoon’s beach activities and my companion tucked into a juicy mixed grill which featured a host of skewered and grilled treats and got a big thumbs up. The sundae special desert was the perfect way to prepare for the beach — raspberry sorbet, strawberry cheesecake ice cream and crumble in a tall glass made me feel like I was a little kid on holiday. Ideal preparation for an afternoon lazing in the sun.
Zero Gravity aims to offer a genuine full-day experience to its customers. A dedicated breakfast menu means you can head down in the morning, spend the day on the beach, then slip into a change of clothes as the venue segues into a beachside club venue at night. We didn’t get to sample the latter as we took our one-year old son down — and it was great to find a kid-friendly, beachside venue that also offers a full range of food and drink — but the venue has big plans for its nightlife offerings too. Paul Van Dyke has already played there this year and the residents rosta includes the likes of Charl Chaka and Smokin’ Groove. Plans are also afoot for a revolving DJ booth that will face the (under construction) pool during the day, then turn through 180 degrees to face the bar area at night, and a stage is also set to be built on the beach for bigger events.
Beachside frivolity in Dubai may just have hit new highs, and although from a selfish perspective we’d like to see Zero Gravity remain Dubai’s best-kept secret, it seems likely it won’t do for long.
Zero Gravity, next to Skydive Dubai, is open seven days a week and costs from Dh150 for a singl- day pass, with Dh50 redeemable against food and beverages
