CÉ LA VI

Black cod at 220 metres

Roasted black cod leaves the pass at CÉ LA VI on the 54th floor of Address Sky View Hotel, 220 metres above Downtown Dubai. The kitchen works in contemporary Asian cooking with a steakhouse edge and a Japanese register running through the wider menu, and the dish has to hold its form in a room where the glass is already competing for attention. Tomahawk steak and wagyu fillet move the same pass toward heat, fat and carving; black cod asks instead for timing and restraint.

The house belongs to the CÉ LA VI group, which began in Singapore and now runs rooms in Taipei, Tokyo and London as well as Dubai. Its stated DNA is the pursuit of pleasure through mixology, music and cuisine, and the Southeast Asian origins show in an interior that draws on the region’s art, carving and temple detail. The Dubai outpost opened around 2020 and took “Best Newcomer Bar” and “Favourite New Restaurant” that year, and it now carries a listing in the Michelin Guide.

Wagyu, risotto and the lunch set

The menu architecture stays flexible, with small plates and à la carte service rather than one fixed procession, which suits a floor where tables arrive for different reasons. Wagyu beef tartare, spinach rigatoni, black truffle risotto and Kiwami wagyu are the dishes guests return to, weighted toward premium cuts and generous portions. A three-course lunch set runs alongside them for business and leisure midday trade, and a plant-based section called The Market sits in the same menu, with halal accommodation built in.

Food is folded into a curated wine list and a cocktail practice that belongs to the venue’s bar culture. The calendar is part of the offer too: Skyline Brunch, Sunday Lunch, Ladies Night and a Ramadan iftar all take the room in different directions, and the kitchen has to keep its line through each of them.

The room above the Burj Khalifa

The interior has the speed of a restaurant that knows the terrace will pull people outward. Warm lighting, modern decor and dark, panelled surfaces set up the space before the glass gives way to the Burj Khalifa and the Dubai skyline. Service runs in an upscale casual key, polished enough for a celebration, loose enough for a lively floor with music in the air.

From the pass, the work has to travel through that noise without becoming decoration for it. Plates move between the Restaurant, the SkyBar, the Club Lounge and the Pool Deck, four settings inside one house, each with its own pace. What ties them together is elevation, both literal and social: a 54th-floor perch, a terrace pointed at the tallest building in the city, and a kitchen sending out black cod and wagyu into the middle of it.