Palazzo Versace Dubai

The first Palazzo Versace opened on Australia's Gold Coast in 2000. The second took fifteen years and a site on Dubai Creek. Palazzo Versace Dubai, in the Jaddaf Waterfront district of Dubai, opened in November 2015 after a long construction, with the Versace design studio in Milan responsible for every interior surface and Donatella Versace giving the final approvals.

History

The developer Enshaa announced the project in 2005, and the works stretched over the years of the financial crisis before the hotel opened to guests in November 2015. In 2016 Q's Bar and Lounge opened inside it, a venue carrying the name and programming of the record producer Quincy Jones. The hotel has stayed outside the big chains, operated by its owners under the Versace licence.

Architecture and design

The building takes the form of a sixteenth-century Italian palazzo stretched to a modern scale, a long cream-coloured block of colonnades and loggias set in gardens facing the creek. The lobby is roofed by a vault lined with hand-laid mosaic and lit by Versace-designed chandeliers. The floors are patterned mosaic, the walls carry Versace prints and the Medusa head, and the furniture comes from Versace Home. Every chandelier, carpet and piece of china was made to Versace designs, which gives the public rooms the density of a showroom. Gardens of palms and parterres fill the ground between the hotel and the water, with three lagoon-shaped pools among them.

Rooms and suites

There are 215 rooms and suites, with a further 169 residences in separate wings. Rooms have mosaic-floored bathrooms, Versace Home furniture and fabrics in the house's prints, and balconies or terraces, many of them facing the creek or the gardens. The Imperial Suite is the largest category, with a private pool. The residences are sold as apartments and share the hotel's gardens and restaurants.

Dining

Vanitas is the Italian restaurant, with a terrace on the gardens. Giardino is the all-day restaurant with its own garden courtyard. Amalfi serves Italian seafood on a terrace by the creek. Q's Bar and Lounge is the music venue, with live performances in a room designed with Quincy Jones. The lobby lounge serves afternoon tea beneath the mosaic vault.

Wellness

The SPA at Palazzo Versace has treatment rooms, a hammam, steam rooms and a relaxation area, with men's and women's sections. The three pools in the gardens are heated in winter and cooled in summer, and there is a fitness centre.

Weddings and events

The hotel holds large weddings in a ballroom with a private entrance and foyer, and in the gardens along the creek, which can take a marquee. Smaller meetings use a row of meeting rooms off the ballroom foyer. The restaurants are available for private dinners. Wedding ceremonies take place on the lawns facing the water, with the hotel's own catering.

Location

Jaddaf Waterfront, also marketed as Culture Village, lies on the Bur Dubai side of the creek, between the old city and Dubai Festival City. Dubai International Airport is about 10 kilometres away, a drive of 15 minutes. Downtown Dubai and the Burj Khalifa are 10 to 15 minutes by car, and Dubai Creek Harbour faces the hotel across the water. Water taxis and abras run on the creek, and the mangroves of the Ras Al Khor wildlife sanctuary, where flamingos winter, lie a few kilometres upstream. For a luxury hotel in Dubai it is unusual in being built low, in gardens, with no tower above it.