IBIS gets Sublime
The new bar at the Ibis Hotel DWTC brings some South American flavour to the World Trade Centre.
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 in March, 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”.
The finished product is a bar which is gynocentric — 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.
“We did actually discuss a sports bar when we were looking at concepts,” Breg reveals, “but when we came up with this idea, we knew it was something different 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, which circles the restaurant on a skewer, tasty appetisers and 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 Brazil-themed colours, we just wanted it to have a subtle identity, so it has a South American theme that is expressed mostly through the food and drinks menus,” explains Breg.
The menu, says bar manager Angelo Tamizi, was perfected during the soft-opening stages, when staff were able to give their feedback about what worked on the plate and what didn’t.
“The menu is still the same, but we had different ideas for 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.
The finished product is impressive — Sublime is a bar that would not be out of place in an upscale hotel and a welcome South American addition to DWTC.