HONESTLY’S VERDICT

In a nutshell: Perfectly combined work space & urban cafe serving up some really good eats to fuel yo ur creative juices.

Food: Simple cafe style options, and surprisingly good.

Service: Attentive and friendly.

Attention to detail: Free use of Mac Books and iPads is a nice touch.

Ambiance: Great for keeping your mind focused on the work at hand.

Location: Ideal location for those living in or near to the Marina.

Value for money: With most menu options coming in at around AED30, it is indeed reasonable value for money.

Worth a visit?  Yes – it’s the perfect place in the Marina to grab some delicious cafe food whilst you settle down with your laptop in stylish surroundings.

I’ve been meaning to pay a little visit to MAKE ever since the initial buzz around their opening in late January, the buzz promises me an urban cafe and workspace aka ‘business hub’; a space to encourage entrepreneurial creativity and networking.

The café serves up delicious food, as expected they offer free WiFi, and more unusually, MacBooks and iPads are available to borrow, there’s a stack of interesting books, and they host networking events and inspiration business development sessions to encourage you to get out there and do something different.

Set inside Al Fattan House at the rear of JBR, the locations not got fantastic views, but who needs views when the insides are pretty nice to look at; clean in the minimalist sense, white and bright.  You’re meant to be working, so the lack of views I suppose, discourages you from staring out of the window, encouraging you to get down to it and MAKE it happen.

The food:

Poached eggs on toast with spinach.  Beautifully cooked eggs on a hunk of white toast and a serve of spinach.  Very tasty, although I did think that in this day and age that they might be served on homemade wholemeal or granary bread.  I added a serve of baked beans for minimal cost and mixed it up with some of my partner’s fritter for maximum brunch-time yumminess.

Leek & potato fritters replaced the corn fritters on the menu.  Good serving size of two fritters, again very tasty, served with a pile of flavourful roasted tomatos and a handful of rocket.

Smoothies from a selection on the specials board, some of the ingredients of weren’t available, so we made our own from what they had.  We were presented with really delicious serves of bright colourful smoothies.

And we ate more…

Next was the wild mushrooms on toast with asparagus and rocket salad.  Well the asparagus was missing, but we did get a big serve of green beans.  Apart from that, it was fab, really tasty mushrooms, again on the white bread (i’d got over the fact it was white by this point in time!) and with a big handful of rocket and generous shaving of Parmesan cheese.

Then we had a little treat: Banoffee cupcake.  What looked like a regular cupcake turned out to be quite different; case made from white chocolate with a 1 cm thick layer of sponge cake, some toffee sauce with a hint of banana flavour in the middle, topped with whipped up cream…lets just say it wasn’t what I was expecting and it didn’t really hit the spot for me, but I do love the chocolate casing.

Copious cups of Fresh mint leaf tea was drunk, all served up in cute little glass teapots and cups, and presented on a little burner to keep the tea warm.

Presentation:

Everything about MAKE’s presentation is different; from the workspace layout to it’s quirky glass tea cups and porcelain cappuccino shot cups.  The food is well presented and   serving size is generous.  It all works together really well and I just love the ideaology behind the brand…In fact i’m half tempted to sack in my day job so I can take advantage of the space on a full-time basis!

Pricing:

We spent all morning and most of the afternoon in MAKE and came away with a bill totaling 300 dirhams and full bellies.  Average price of a dish was around 30 dirhams.

Service:

Nothing was too much for the guys serving, which makes a refreshing change in Dubai.  You ask for extras or substitutions and there was a no problem response, which is a rarity in Dubai (take note Pascal Teppers in DMC!).  There seemed to be quite a few items on the menu which were unavailable, which was a disappointing, but we were offered some tasty alternatives that hit the spot.

Oh and ignore the opening time info on their website, for the weekend at least they don’t open until 10am, not 8am as advertised.

Contact:

www.makebusinesshub.com

Tel: +971 4392 9216

Categories:

Something a little different, working lunch, don’t bring the kids