the back story
Our story
Marginalia started as a battered notebook and a stubborn belief that good coffee deserves to be written about, not just poured.
It began with a margin. For years our founder Layla kept a coffee notebook — a running column of scribbles beside every cup she drank across Dubai, Addis, and Melbourne. Which farm. Which roaster. What it reminded her of. The notes in the margin always said more than the tidy paragraphs beside them.
In 2021 she and roaster Yusuf took over a bare warehouse unit in Alserkal Avenue, hauled in a restored 1994 Probat, and turned the notebook into a business. The rule was simple: if we can't write an honest, specific note about a coffee, we don't serve it.
still the same drum, still the same notebook
We are, first and last, a roastery. The café out front exists so that we can taste our own coffee the way you will — pulled fast on a busy Friday, or drawn out slow on a quiet Tuesday morning. Every batch we roast is brewed on the bar within the week, so the log stays honest.
We are also unashamedly of this city. Cardamom finds its way into the cortado; dates and tahini into the latte; saffron into the oat milk. Dubai is a place built from everywhere at once, and our menu is happiest when it tastes like the neighbourhood walking past the window.
None of it is precious. The best compliment we get is someone pulling up a stool, ordering the same flat white they always do, and staying an hour longer than they meant to. The notes are for the curious; the coffee is for everyone.
What we believe
Taste before we buy
Nothing reaches the bar without first earning a place on the cupping table.
Roast to the bean
We chase the coffee's character, not a fashionable colour on a chart.
Write it down
Every origin gets a page in the log; every bag leaves with a roast date.
No rush at the bar
A hand pour takes four minutes. Sitting with it a while is the whole point.
Local first
We hire, bake, and pour for the Al Quoz neighbourhood that took us in.
“Come for the note in the margin. Stay for the cup beside it.”
— Layla & Yusuf, founders