The guide inspects two of the seven emirates. Dubai's 2025 selection holds 19 starred restaurants out of 119 listed — 2 at three stars, 3 at two, 14 at one. Abu Dhabi's 2026 selection holds 3 at one star out of 56. A zero in the other five emirates means the guide has not been there, not that there is nothing to find. The Dubai ceremony scheduled for May 2026 was postponed, so the 2025 selection remains the working reference.
Tables that have lost a star are kept on file with the year of the change: a demotion is a signal too, particularly for dining rooms inside hotels. The guide covers Dubai and Abu Dhabi only — five of the seven emirates have never been inspected, so their absence here says nothing about what is there.