Publishing house Condé Nast, responsible for a number of fashion magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, Glamour and GQ will conquer the Middle East with a new additions to its business concept – Vogue café and GQ bar. The luxury Dubai Mall is preparing to welcome the glitzy café set to open by the end of the next month.
Moving from publishing to hospitality business, or rather merging them, Condé Nast has already launched several other fashionable cafes, including the Moscow –based cafe. Vogue Café Dubai will be housed inside the world’s largest shoe store, Level Shoe District, a 96,000 sq ft luxury retail space, which is situated in the Dubai Mall at the ground floor of Burj Khalifa, world’s tallest skyscraper. It will be the company’s first such café in the Middle East where luxury fashion labels such as Burberry and Chanel are very popular among the region’s well-heeled shoppers.
Vogue Café Dubai will be surrounded by high-end fashion and shoe stores in the 828-meter-tall Burj Khalifa which already features a swanky hotel and several restaurants designed by Giorgio Armani. The café will serve contemporary European food, but no alcohol. Drinks however will be available at another Conde Nast outlet – the GQ Bar, which was specially designed for the male fans of the fashion magazines. The publisher is in partnership with experienced Dubai-based food and beverage company, Inspired Group which will be a joint operator of the bar and the café and will help with the specific local cuisine and tastes.
The bar is said to open in a 5-star hotel on March 19, and the café is planned to open on April 14. In fact, Condé Nast is not the first member of the fashion world to build a restaurant empire. Italian designer Roberto Cavalli opened a series of Cavalli Caffè locations in New Delhi, Milan, and Beirut and Gucci has cafes in Florence, Milan and Tokyo.
