Sean Connolly at Dubai Opera restaurant review - Dubai, UAE

When tasked with creating chef Sean Connolly’s brasserie in the expansive top floor of architect Janus Rostock’s dhow-shaped Dubai Opera masterpiece, Jeremy Bull, founder of Alexander & Co, made a calculated decision: sink it. 

Designed in partnership with fellow Australian multi-disciplinary practice, Tribe Studio, aquatic themes flow between the conjoined main restaurant, bar areas and outdoor rooftop terrace serving premium grills and global seafood delicacies. ‘The experience is like floating through an ocean sea bed; unusual and surreal, with shards of daylight falling upon the corals of the furniture and reflecting from the scales of the enormous vaulted ceiling tiles,’ explains Bull. 

Referencing the soft pink banquette leathers and faint pearl grey matt and glazed finishes of the oyster shell-like sails above, textures, colours and patinas were considered with exacting precision.

Sea kelp-green velveteen lounges and an immersive dappled blue wool carpet float atop sandy-hued marble floors upon which curvilinear cult 20th-Century furniture originals are poised. Custom-designed masterpieces include a brass mobile light batten with disc nodules inspired by floating driftwood and a suspended Merino wool tentacle sculpture.