Azizi Riviera 
Coffee
Homebrew
Nostalgic tastes, locally sourced.
A café built around the Dubai its founder grew up in — old-school local flavours reworked for a modern menu, rather than the specialty-coffee template most new openings reach for. It sits on the Building 24 stretch of the promenade and keeps longer hours than anything else nearby.
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Order this
The labneh sourdough bagel — labneh, mint, and local vegetables, built as a nod to Al Reef Lebanese Bakery rather than a copy of it.
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The room
Laid-back enough to work from for a few hours, which is what most of the weekday crowd is doing. Families take over later in the day.
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Worth knowing
Named in Virgin Radio's top ten coffee shops in the UAE — unusual for a café inside a residential development rather than a retail district.
Why it reads differently
Founded by Ania Kubow, a Dubai-raised software developer, with a menu put together by head chef Saba, also from here. The premise is specific: dishes that reference what eating in Dubai was like before the city's current restaurant scene, served in a room that doesn't lean on that nostalgia visually.
The practical consequence is that the food menu carries as much weight as the coffee, which is not the default on this promenade.
When to go
The 6am open is the outlier here — useful before a commute, and earlier than the rest of Riviera's ground-floor retail. Late evening is the other quiet window; the middle of the day is when the room fills.