Menagerie Eatery
Mirdif, Dubai- Year 2015
- Architect Binchy and Binchy Website
- Certificates Winner Commercial Interior Design Award - F&B 2017
This new boutique restaurant concept aims to carve a niche into the UAE’s dynamic food & beverage scene; giving alternative and marginalised diets a centre stage. As delicate as a jewellery shop, we aimed to create a restaurant interior that defines a balance between elegance and comfort.
We were briefed with a single, beautifully crafted word; Menagerie. This word can mean an exotic or diverse collection of people or things, or a collection of like-minded people. Traditional Menagerie, Avery and Conservatory geometric aesthetics were foremost led by structure; the design based around a simple mathematical principle of single and double cubes. With this in mind, Binchy and Binchy carved the space in the same way. The pink tiled single-cube contains a a communal table around a lively and vibrant open kitchen, the “Menagerie”, where people can sit together, personally connect with the chef. On the opposite side, a green tiled double-cube structure houses a salad bar and patisserie. This structure completely opens up the internal façade towards the mall. The ceilings reflect the spatial concept by translating the geometries of the vertical structures on the horizontal plane.
Materials, colours and lighting were selected to harmonise and accentuate the colourful, balanced aesthetics of Menagerie’s dishes. The restaurant is open all day and this materiality, activated by lighting, softly changes the atmosphere from early morning coffee to intimate dinners within the same space.