“From breezy calm to action-packed fun, La Mer has something for everyone.” Meraas
If you are a fan of colourful beach huts, quirky street art and new concepts head over to La Mer Dubai, the latest in a long line of trendy concepts by Meraas. Currently still in its soft opening phase, La Mer is great place to chill out on the redeveloped beach but with only a few dining outlets and shops currently open I suggest waiting a few weeks before visiting. Once fully operational it will offer visitors a full range of dining, retail and leisure experiences but for now there are just a handful of restaurants open and a couple of food trucks.
The large beachfront site located in Jumeirah 1 is divided into three zones; La Mer North, La Mer South and The Wharf (yet to open). A continuous boardwalk snakes around the site with the aforementioned beach huts housing showers and toilets. It’s aesthetically pleasing with plenty of driftwood, ropes strung with lights and an overall LA beach vibe.
The first opening phase emcompasses La Mer North and La Mer South offering visitors over a hundred shops, cafes and restaurants (click here for a guide) as well as beach based activities. Well-known concepts such as Gossip Cafe, Parkers, Salt, Starbucks Reserve, Cupagahwa and Abu Dhabi’s Stars N Bars will be joined by concepts making their debut in the region.
The Wharf is the second phase that will open early next year featuring a waterpark (with a regional first-of-it’s-kind surf park), a cinema, and more dining and retail spaces. Also in the pipeline is a hotel and a residential community rumoured to be situated on two man-made peninsulas. An adult upbeat experience is promised at the ‘Sea Spice’ beach club opening soon. Day rooms and cabanas will soon be available designed to attract visitors to kick back and relax all day and into the evening. Other benefits include free wifi and parking, valet service, prayer rooms and mobile charging facilities.
Families are well catered for with beach activities, playgrounds and in another first for this region (also first outside East Asia), La Mer has installed the Japanese all-weather air filled trampoline concept Hawa Hawa. Developed and installed in public parks across Japan, the unusual trampoline park has two white inflated domes and seven peaks that were certainly attracting some interest when we visited.
Meraas is leading the way in Dubai with it’s string of on-trend lifestyle concepts that include City Walk, The Beach at JBR, Boxpark, Last Exit and The Outlet Village as well as Al Seef alongside Dubai Creek. Like all its existing concepts Meraas has applied the same level of detail to La Mer, even preserving and replanting some of the corals unique to the area that were discovered during the redevelopment.
If you find yourself in Dubai head to Jumeirah and check out this laid back lifestyle concept for yourself but definitely give it a few weeks, the weather should be absolutely perfect by then too.
La Mer Dubai
Location: Jumeirah Beach Road (after Etihad Museum), Dubai
Telephone: 800 MERAAS (637227)
Website: www.lamerdubai.ae/
Shops: Weekdays 10:00am – 10:00pm, Weekends 10:00am – 12 midnight
Restaurants/Cafes: Daily 10:00am – 12 midnight (some cafes and restaurants will be open for breakfast from 8:00am)
Complimentary shuttle buses are available from seven Dubai hotels – click here for locations and times.
Unless otherwise stated, all photos on this page © Jo Brett 2017. All rights reserved. First and Hawa Hawa photos used with courtesy of www.lamerdubai.ae/
Read more about other Meraas destinations in previous posts The Outlet Village | Dubai, Last Exit | Dubai and Last Exit Mad X | Dubai