Nobu Dubai by the Rockwell Group

n 1994 when chef Nobu Matsuhisa opened his eponymous Japanese restaurant in New York City, he became an instant sensation and immediately gained global recognition for his innovative cuisine. Since then, the chef has brought his exquisite Japanese dishes to Nobu restaurants all over the world. His most recent opening in Dubai also marks his first restaurant located in the Middle East. Conceived by the renowned hospitality design firm, the Rockwell Group, Nobu Dubai continues Matsuhisa’s legacy of pairing remarkable food with luxurious restaurant interiors.

Needless to say, a restaurant of such high-end renown as Nobu requires an exotic address of the same caliber to match. Given thus, this latest Nobu is located in The Palm at the world’s ultimate luxury resort getaway, the majestic man-made island Atlantis, which is the breathtakingly stunning focal point in Dubai’s Palm Jumeirah.

Spanning a total of 11,500-square-feet large, the beautiful restaurant features glamorous interiors, including a cavernous main dining room, a dazzling bar/lounge area, a sleek sushi bar, as well as an elegant private dining room. The Rockwell group drew on Asian and Middle Eastern design elements for the overall space, which ranged from large curvilinear abaca panels to wrought-iron columns depicting leaves and flowering buds.

The entrance to the bar/lounge area has a stunning backdrop that features a 60-foot-long curved wall made of river rock and a metal screen that has been laser cut with cherry blossom motifs. Inside the circular lounge, translucent panels line the walls, which display images of cherry blossoms by the photographer Michael Palladino.

For the main dining room, layers of hand-woven abaca panels were used to cover the walls and the ceiling to create an undulating visual texture that would evoke a feeling of being submerged by an ocean wave—a homage to the restaurant’s waterfront locale.

Striking contrast to this is the clean-lined sushi bar, which is made from bamboo and terrazzo, while a wall punctuated with metalwork flower designs leads to the private dining room where shelves filled with sake bottles, luminescent floral artworks, and custom-made hanging light fixtures serve as sparkling accent pieces.

To achieve the glamorous and luxurious effects of this amazing restaurant, the Rockwell Group combined natural materials with 21^st-century technology to execute most of the interior design elements, such as the large abaca panels, which were computer generated. At the same time, the use of natural materials in the restaurant design is also a nod to chef Matsuhisa’s delicate cuisine and his roots of being from the Japanese countryside.

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