Our Favourite Abu Dhabi Mall Has Just Got Even Better
The Galleria Al Maryah Island’s new expansion opened today to equal amounts fanfare and shopping bags. Here’s why you need to make your way down there asap…
Eat, play, shop. Three of our favourite words in the whole of the English language, and incidentally, the three that have been chosen to launch The Galleria Al Maryah Island’s shiny new expansion.
It’s a judicious choice, since the Abu Dhabi mega-mall is now a paragon of where to do them all. Seventy new dining venues await, including The Cheesecake Factory, Bouchon Bakery and P.F. Chang’s, landscaped urban rooftop and indoor parks and play spaces offer additional reasons to visit, but most excitingly of all, the expansion is also home to 250 new stores.
Already famed for its selection of luxury boutiques, this new space – 80 per cent of which is already leased, and the rest of the shops being opened over the next few weeks – boasts a genuinely fantastic array of high-street stores, including the neatest and most civilised Zara we’ve ever had the pleasure of perusing.
Other hero stops we would recommend making a bee-line for are & Other Stories (for the excellent earrings and ‘70s-style, one-and-done wrap dresses that make office dressing a cinch), H&M Home (the not-so-secret interiors haven that has fast become our favourite place to stock up on raffia accessories. It’s a problem), and of course Charlotte Tilbury, which has launched an exclusive foundation only available in The Galleria Al Maryah Island.
The great and good of the UAE’s fashion and business industries gathered this morning for the ribbon cutting, where President and CEO of Related Urban and Co-Managing Partner of Gulf Related, Kenneth Himmel took to the stage to relay how important it was to create a compelling destination for the people of Abu Dhabi, the UAE and beyond.
We didn’t need it, but there’s now one more reason to head to the capital.
Press play to watch BAZAAR go shopping with Diala Makki at The Galleria Al Maryah Island