Ali Khalil, founder and Creative Director of LEVUMA, a high jewelry house established in Antwerp in 2016, is a Dubai-based authority in rare natural diamonds. He shares his favorite addresses in Dubai, a city much discussed but not always fully understood, and describes how insiders and creatives can get the best from this "magnetic" place.

Dubai is a city you fall in love with once you live there, not with one visit. I wasn’t convinced at first. Like many people, I only saw the surface: the glitz, the scale, the spectacle. It was only after moving here, settling in, and allowing myself to experience the city beyond short trips that I began to understand its magnetism. People are here to build something. There is an ambition in the air that feels contagious.