Simply Sublime

The new bar at the Ibis Hotel DWTC brings some South American flavour to the World Trade Centre.

Front of house
Hidden amid the grey buildings of the Dubai Exhibition Centre is the refreshingly colourful site of Sublime bar — the latest F&B outlet from the Ibis Hotel, DWTC.

Officially launched last month, Sublime purports to bring a female-friendly vibe to the bar scene in the business part of a town, which design company Tribe chief worrier Stefan Breg says is still “very male dominated”.

“Even though Dubai has changed it is still a macho city,” Breg explains. “It is all about guys, football and rugby and I think back to the days when All Bar One was created in the UK and they kept talking about it being the first female-friendly bar — they did great business out of it.”

The finished product is a bar which is gynocentric, but not off-putting to male clientele — there are curtained booths that can be drawn for privacy; art-deco lighting adorned with funky prints; and different areas arranged over several levels, a design technique which creates distinct areas of the outlet.

There is even an area which seems to have already been earmarked for use by Sublime’s male customers. “They seem to have claimed the corner in the back,” says bar manager Angelo Tamizi. With a television in pride of place on the wall, it comes as no surprise that this is the gents’ end of the bar.

“We did actually discuss a sports bar when we were looking at potential concepts,” Breg reveals, “but when we came up with this idea, we knew it was something different and something that would work.”

“Sublime is really a celebration — it is all about allowing yourself to indulge. Our strapline says ‘tempting’, and that’s what we wanted it to be.

We have lots of things here which make coming to the bar a ‘sublime’ experience; things such as the Tempt Station, which serves little desserts and wine — we want people to feel that they can indulge,” he adds. And indulge they can — with a menu featuring mouth-watering rodizio courses, tasty appetizers and lighter snacks.

“When we decided that rodizio would be a part of the menu, there was a thought that we really needed some ethnicity for the bar — sometimes you need to give the bar an identity - but we didn’t want to go overboard with anything like Brazilian-themed colours, we just wanted it to have a subtle identity, so it has a South American theme, which is expressed mostly through the food and drinks menus,” explains Breg.

Back of house
If the front of house has a South American theme, the back of house is arguably Uruguay — small and insignificant looking, but surprisingly versatile.

“The kitchen is remarkably small,” admits Breg, “but then we see that as a good thing because it has kept capital costs down. It also has some impressive elements, like the rodizio grill.”

The kitchen was designed in-house, which Breg says means that the culinary flow isn’t affected by the size. The fact that some of the food is prepared outside of the kitchen area also prevents the kitchen from becoming overcrowded.

In fact, with the Tempt Station, where dessert is made as you watch, and rodizio circling the room, the kitchen doesn’t feel like it’s part of the back of house as the chefs are able to easily interact with guests.
“Rodizio has been a learning curve,” says Breg.

“Carving at the table is something more difficult — but it is great because it encourages conversation; the guests help to put the meat on their plates, they talk to the server, it gets them involved in the whole process,” he adds.

It also means the staff working in the kitchen have slightly different roles to the traditional back of house chefs.

“We took some of our kitchen staff from the Novotel and Ibis hotel, and the rest were chosen by our executive chef,” says Tamizi of the kitchen staff.

“We have Chattura who is an amazing chef; very skilled and ambitious and always coming up with new ideas for us,” he adds.

These ideas came into play during the soft opening of the bar when Tamizi says the food presentation “changed completely”.

“The actual menu remained the same, but we had various ideas about how things should be presented and served, so we were able to spend time getting things right and making the changes we needed to before the official opening,” he explains.

And with the finalised menu including a selection of mouth-watering delights, Sublime looks set to bring some South American flavour to the World Trade Centre.