SOUB is a new Emirati homegrown café located in the Al Khawaneej neighborhood of Dubai. Its design, by Dubai-based VSHD Design, is characterized by a poignant brutalist style referencing seventies era architecture in the Gulf region, with references to edifices in the United Arab Emirates, decorated with iconic one-of-a-kind mid-century modern furniture and heightened with a clever performative design element. The café’s jewel feature is a long black open “strip” or food pass where diners can get a glimpse of chefs preparing food and drinks until they are placed on the platform in the pass for waiters to pick up. The open strip is flanked by two long static curtains as if it were a theater and the chefs were enacting a performance through glimpses of their cooking and hand gestures. The curtains are decorated with black and white photographs of two Sharjah brutalist structures dating to the 1970s that founder of VSHD Rania Hamed discovered in Building Sharjah (2021), a book co-edited by Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi and Todd Reisz on Sharjah’s architectural history. The curtains, like the brutalist design references of the space, echo elements from past Gulf brutalist architectural styles ground the café’s design in the United Arab Emirates’ architectural history. The space is further heightened by the innovative interplay between natural and artificial light that casts shadows on the walls to reveal the mix of rough, glossy and wooden materials offering a rich sense of color and texture like the iconic variety of vintage furniture placed throughout the space in a linear fashion. SOUB provides a sense of mystique and modern glamor akin to a private social club but with an Emirati modern design flair creating a space that is snug, upscale and intimate.