April 8, 2019

Text: Jesse Dorris

H2R Design Creates Pegboard-Inspired Bagel Yard Café in Dubai

The history of the bagel, like the parboiled treat itself, has a few holes, but it’s generally thought to have originated in Eastern Europe and been perfected in New York. Recent refinement has come courtesy of Bagel Yard, which knew it needed a fresh look when importing its Montreal-style take on the bagel to the surfing community of Dubai’s Umm Suqeim neighborhood.

Pendants from Lambert & Fils illuminate the custom banquettes and tables. Photography courtesy of H2R Design.

To do so, they brought in the London and Dubai-based firm H2R Design, which has lately been making a name for itself throughout Egypt. The 970-square-foot space, explains co-founder and partner Hasan Roomi, needed to “represent the intricate detail that is put into the bagel-making process within its design.”

Read more: Matteo Foresti Modernizes a Narrow Stockholm Building Into a Light-Filled Café

A custom plant screen in solid white oak does double duty as a room divider. Photography courtesy of H2R Design.

Ample greenery and a palette of crisp white and Bagel Yard-brand blue provide the backdrop to the oven’s aromas. But while watching how the bagels needed to be hung after baking in order to cool, the team hit upon the signature detail: pegboards throughout, served by copper hooks that picked up the metallic detail lining the custom banquettes—ensuring that the bagels not only feel cool, but look that way, too.

Read more: 10 Simply Amazing Cafés

The counter’s concrete base supports a custom terrazzo finish, with hand-placed marble aggregates and embedded LEDs underneath a cove profile. Photography courtesy of H2R Design.

H2R sourced quarter-cut light ash wood planks and large format square terrazzo-like tiles from a local vendor for the flooring. Photography courtesy of H2R Design.

The kitchen functions underneath aluminum shelving powder-coated in a pure white. Photography courtesy of H2R Design.

The bar stools, like the chairs throughout the space, are by TON. Photography courtesy of H2R Design.

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