What’s On has your definitive guide of things to do in Dubai in February, including RedFest, Jazz Festival, best burgers in Dubai and more.


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Festival has to be one of our favourite words at What’s On. It’s right up there with ‘breakfast’, ‘cake’ and ‘deadline.’ Oh yes, we love a deadline here. We chew ‘em up and spit ‘em out – delicious.

Our love for a festival is blossoming this month – fittingly for Valentine’s Day – with several of the best coming to Dubai.

We kick off with the Dubai Food Festival. This year there are more events than ever, garnished with star names such as Jason Atherton, Silvena Rowe, and Sanjeev Kapoor. Atherton spoke to What’s On about his influences, memorable meals, and gave us a sneak preview of his upcoming Dubai restaurant.

February sees the return of RedFestDXB, with The Script, Bastille, Kiesza and Iggy Azalea playing the Media City Amphitheatre. The Dubai Jazz Festival follows with headliners James Blunt, Sting and John Legend. We spoke to James about life on the road as a rock star and told us the first thing he does when he gets home is his laundry – his mum must be so proud.

Coming up in early March is the Dubai Festival Of Literature and we’ve given you a heads-up on the names coming to talk books. We spoke to David Nicholls, the man behind best-sellers One Day and Starter For Ten, who explained the process of turning one of your books into a Hollywood film. Michael Morpurgo, who wrote the worldwide phenomenon War Horse, revealed the book was a bit of a flop when it was published 25 years ago but how some chance encounters led to it becoming one of the most popular novels in recent years.

Our cover story this month is burgers. Plump, juicy, glistening, succulent slabs of prime beef topped with cheese, relish, and lettuce, nestled seductively between two soft baps. We’ve eaten the best burgers in Dubai – 45 of them – and given them our verdict. It’s the ultimate guide to burgers in Dubai. Come to think of it, we should probably add ‘burger’ to our list of favourite words at What’s On. They’re even tastier than deadlines.

Elsewhere in our February issue, we’ve sniffed around the soon-to-be-open Box Park shopping mall in Jumeirah, which we reckon is going to become a retail hotspot. We have events and dinners you can try for Chinese New Year (just so you know, folks, 2015 is the year of the goat). We chatted to chef Antonio Carluccio who recalled his memories of food from his childhood, growing up in a railway station in Italy. We have previews of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships with a profile of serial winner Serena Williams. Also in the issue is sandboarding, art inspired by African tribes, a Hindi version of Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night, reviews of the city’s hottest new restaurants, bars with gardens, and the 663km Dubai Tour which will see the world’s best cyclists, such as Tour De France champion Vincenzo Nibali, pedalling around our streets.

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