The Lana

Marasi Bay is the quiet reach of the Dubai Water Canal where it opens out behind Business Bay, with the towers of Downtown and the Burj Khalifa standing across the water. On its bank The Lana opened on 1 February 2024, the first hotel that Dorchester Collection had built from the ground up and its first outside Europe and the United States. It carries no name from the group's older houses; the Lana, from the Arabic for a calm place, was chosen as a name of its own.

History

Dorchester Collection, owned by the Brunei Investment Agency, had run the same nine hotels in London, Paris, Rome, Milan, Ascot, Los Angeles and Beverly Hills for more than a decade when it announced its Dubai project with the developer Omniyat in 2019. Construction ran through the pandemic, and the hotel opened in February 2024 with a residences tower attached. It was the group's first new hotel since 45 Park Lane in 2011 and the first Dorchester Collection property in the Middle East, a region whose travellers had long made up a large share of the guests at The Dorchester and the Plaza Athénée.

Architecture and design

Foster + Partners designed the building, a tower of 30 floors whose façade steps and folds in white and glass over the canal, with a pool deck and spa on the roof. Gilles & Boissier, the Paris studio of Patrick Gilles and Dorothée Boissier, designed the interiors in their usual manner of dark timber, marble, brass and restrained colour, with Middle Eastern geometry worked into screens and ceilings rather than applied as ornament. The lobby opens onto the canal through a double-height glass wall.

Rooms and suites

The hotel has 225 rooms and suites, most with balconies facing the canal or the Burj Khalifa. The suites rise through the upper floors to the Royal Suite, which takes a full floor with its own terrace. Rooms have marble bathrooms with separate dressing areas and the tablet-controlled systems now standard in Dubai, and the balcony is the feature that sets the house apart from most of the city's towers.

Dining

The Lana opened with the deepest bench of chefs in the city. Jara is the restaurant of Martín Berasategui, the Basque chef with twelve Michelin stars across his restaurants in Spain, serving his Basque cooking on the first floor. Riviera by Jean Imbert brings the French chef of the Plaza Athénée to Dubai with a Mediterranean menu on the canal terrace. Mott 32, the Cantonese restaurant founded in Hong Kong, has its Dubai branch in the hotel. High Society, the rooftop bar on the 29th floor, looks across to the Burj Khalifa; Bonbon Café on the ground floor is the pastry shop of Angelo Musa, the French pastry chef; and The Gallery is the lobby lounge for tea.

Wellness

The Dior Spa The Lana occupies the 29th floor, the first spa of the Paris house in the Gulf, with treatment rooms using Dior's protocols and a view over the canal. The rooftop pool and its deck sit above it, with cabanas and a pool bar, and the gym is on the same level. A ladies' pool day is held weekly, as in most Dubai hotels.

Weddings and events

The Lana has a ballroom and a series of meeting rooms on its event floor, with pre-function space facing the canal, and hosts weddings, corporate dinners and product launches. The terraces of Riviera and the rooftop serve for receptions. Capacities for the ballroom and the smaller rooms are set by the hotel according to the layout chosen.

Location

The hotel stands on Marasi Drive in Business Bay, on the north bank of the Dubai Water Canal. The Dubai Mall and the Burj Khalifa are ten minutes by car, DIFC the same, and Dubai International Airport around 20 minutes. Jumeirah beach is fifteen minutes away. Business Bay metro station, on the Red Line, is a short drive; the district is built for cars. As a luxury hotel in Dubai it chose the canal over the beach, and the quiet of Marasi Bay over the Palm.