Zallaq

Zallaq belonged to Bahrain's empty side. While the pearling towns grew on the north and east coasts facing the oyster beds and the trade routes, the west shore looked across shallow water towards the Arabian mainland and held only scattered fishing families, date gardens and grazing land. Camels and goats were herded on the scrub behind the beach, and the village lived off small boats working the shallows.

The interior changed first. Oil was struck at Jebel Dukhan in 1932, the first strike on the Arabian side of the Gulf, and the southern desert filled with wells, pipelines, company land and, later, military and royal property, much of it closed to the public. A wildlife reserve was established at Al Areen in 1976 to breed Arabian oryx and other species that had been hunted almost to extinction in the peninsula.

The coast itself was developed from the 1980s onwards, as Bahrain built beach hotels and spas for Gulf visitors and for the weekend traffic that began crossing the King Fahd Causeway after it opened in 1986. Sakhir, the desert inland, received the country's motor-racing circuit in 2004, and with it Formula One, an exhibition centre and an airshow, which turned a thinly populated corner of the island into the site of its largest international events. The strip of resorts, the reserve and the circuit have grown together into the island's main leisure district outside the capital.

This is the quiet, conservative side of Bahrain, and the contrast between the resorts and the surrounding countryside is part of its character. Inside the hotel compounds the rules are those of an international beach resort; outside them are farms, camel pens, date palms and villages where dress is modest, the call to prayer sets the rhythm of the day and alcohol is neither sold nor drunk.

Camels remain a visible part of local life, kept in shaded pens along the coast road and bred for racing and for status as much as for milk or meat. Falconry, horse breeding and desert camping in the cooler months are the traditional pastimes of this part of the island, and Bahraini families come out from the towns at weekends to picnic on the public beaches and in the desert.

Motor sport has given the area a second identity. The Sakhir circuit made Bahrain a fixture on the Formula One calendar from 2004, and race weekends fill the hotels, though the 2026 Grand Prix was cancelled in Bahrain because of the war with Iran and moved to Malaysia. Visitors are expected to dress and behave modestly away from hotel beaches, and to treat religion and the ruling family with respect.

Few people live in Zallaq itself compared with the crowded north of the island: this is a thinly settled coast of villas, farms and resort compounds in the Southern Governorate, the largest of Bahrain's four governorates by area but home to a small share of its population. Much of the surrounding desert is closed — oil field, military installations and royal estates — so settlement is squeezed between the shore and the highways.

Work is concentrated in hospitality and in the leisure attractions: hotels, spas, the wildlife park, the water park and the circuit, with agriculture, camel keeping and fishing continuing alongside. Many staff commute from Riffa, Hamad Town and the villages inland, and a large share are migrant workers from South Asia and the Philippines.

The week turns on Bahraini and Saudi weekends. From Thursday afternoon the coast road fills with cars from the causeway and from Manama, beaches and restaurants are busy, and hotel rates rise; by Sunday the area is quiet again. In summer almost all activity moves to the evening, and the beaches are used after dark.

Eating at Zallaq means the sea and the hotels. The Gulf catch landed along this coast — hamour, which is grouper, safi, or rabbitfish, and local prawns — is grilled whole over charcoal or cooked into a sour tomato-and-tamarind stew, and served with machboos, the spiced rice with fish or meat that is Bahrain's national dish. Flatbread comes from a tannour, a clay oven whose hot wall the dough is slapped against.

The resorts supply the rest: Lebanese mezze, Indian and Iranian kitchens, international buffets and the licensed bars and terraces that are hard to find outside hotels in this part of the island. Shisha lounges are common along the coast. Inland, the cafeterias and grill houses of Riffa and the villages serve the everyday food of Bahrain — shawarma, biryani, chicken and rice — at a fraction of resort prices.

Sweets and drinks follow the national pattern. Halwa Bahraini, a dense, chewy, saffron-and-rosewater paste studded with nuts, is sold in boxes as a gift; dates appear with cardamom coffee whenever guests arrive; and karak tea, boiled strong with milk, sugar and cardamom, is the everyday drink of the roadside cafeterias that serve drivers on the desert highways.