The Pitchers Sports Bar at the Armada BlueBay Hotel in Cluster P, JLT has some pretty stiff competition to deal with within the same cluster – Nola, Mythos and most recently, the Axe House. But there’s one thing Pitchers has which none of them can raise a finger to – old school, Dubai charm. And that was the first thing I thought when I walked in through the partition separating the dining area from the bar.
So many smaller establishments had exactly the same layout in the early days when Dubai was still a yawning, laid-back, fun-loving, trading post. I had a flashback of the Jebel Ali Club before the recent upgrades. True to form, Pitchers has an indoor (bar) section and an outdoor (pool bar) section, which also doubles as a shisha lounge.
Pitchers has an early Happy Hour, from 16:00 – 20:00, when prices of draft hops drops to a reasonable AED25 a pint, a bucket of five bottled hops costs around AED110, spirits are around AED26, cocktails around AED30 and their house grape, around AED110 a bottle. Service outside is better than inside, as there are more boots on the outside. A big minus is that valet parking is NOT available. So, is this a bar/restaurant worth coming back to? Irrespective of its nostalgic appeal, unless I want to meet someone in absolute secret and privacy, I cannot see any reason whatsoever for revisiting Pitchers. In my rating, I am taking a half point off for no valet.
Waste NOT. Want NOT.
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