Souk Al Bahar
An Arabesque 'sailor's market' of stone arches and lanterns on Burj Lake, linked to Dubai Mall by a bridge with the best fountain view.
Souk Al Bahar — Arabic for 'market of the sailor' — is an Arabesque-style marketplace in Downtown Dubai, opened by Emaar in November 2008 as part of the district's development. It sits on the edge of Burj Lake directly opposite the Burj Khalifa, and is home to around 100 tenants: boutiques, art galleries, handicraft and carpet shops, waterfront restaurants and the Time Out Market food hall.
Though a modern build, the souk is designed in traditional Arabian idiom — stone-corridor alleys, arched walkways, wooden-lattice detailing, natural stone façades and soft lantern lighting — creating a heritage-market mood in the middle of a skyscraper district. Its two levels wrap around courtyards and an internal water channel, and many of the restaurants open directly onto terraces above the lake.
The souk is linked to The Dubai Mall by the Souk Al Bahar Bridge, a wood-and-stone pedestrian crossing over Burj Lake designed by local architect Khalid Al Jarmani and completed in 2009, hung with traditional lanterns and lined with arches. The bridge is one of the single best vantage points in the city for the Dubai Fountain show, with the Burj Khalifa rising directly behind — a spot where crowds gather well before each performance. Souk Al Bahar is at its most atmospheric in the evening and through the cooler winter months, when the lake reflects the lights of the fountain and tower.
Exhibo editorial
Souk Al Bahar has an impossible job — play the humble 'sailor's market' while sitting at the foot of the tallest building on earth — and it mostly pulls it off by leaning into contrast rather than fighting it. Stone arches, lantern light and lattice screens on one side; the Burj Khalifa's glass spike straight ahead.
The real reason to come isn't the shops, it's the bridge. The wood-and-stone crossing to Dubai Mall is the address everyone wants when the fountain fires — tower behind, water in front, lanterns overhead. Arrive an hour early if you want the rail. Then retreat to a terrace on the souk side, order something, and let the fountain do its thing every half hour while the lake throws the whole skyline back at you.
How to find it
Souk Al Bahar is in Downtown Dubai on the far side of Burj Lake from The Dubai Mall, opposite the Burj Khalifa. From the Burj Khalifa/Dubai Mall metro station (Red Line), walk through the mall to the Souk Al Bahar Bridge and cross the lake — the bridge itself is the prime Dubai Fountain viewpoint. The souk's waterfront restaurants and terraces face the fountain and tower; the internal lanes and galleries sit behind.
Similar places
All places
News by Exhibo
Editorial coverage on Exhibo
Filmed, but Not Recorded: The Arab World’s Missing Film Locations
Wikidata knows Gladiator was filmed in Morocco. It doesn’t know where.
Ouarzazate is the second most filmed place in the Middle East and North Africa, yet 25 of its 27 productions are recorded only in Wikipedia prose. We compared filming records worldwide and found that in the Arab world, Wikidata usually knows the country but not the place.
Landscape Painting: A History
How Western painters turned scenery from a backdrop into a genre, from Dutch mills and Claude’s ports to Constable and Impressionist weather
Landscape painting became a European specialism in the seventeenth century, then a vehicle for national feeling, scientific looking and modern colour. This history follows the genre from antiquity’s backgrounds through Dutch naturalism, Claude, the picturesque, Romantic weather and Impressionist light, with four works read in museum collections.
Mission Impossible and the Burj Khalifa
What the world's most famous building stunt tells you about everything it was filmed on
A film crew drilled into the world's tallest building to hang a man off the side of it. Behind that decision sits wind physics, a hundred-year-old cooling technology, a height race Dubai has quietly stepped away from, and an art scene older than the tower.