Restaurant & F&B fit out
Restaurant, café, bar and F&B outlet fit out across Dubai — dining room and bar joinery from our own Al Quoz workshop, commercial kitchen builder’s work, extract, grease and gas, with Dubai Municipality Food Control, Civil Defence, DEWA and the landlord handled under one contract.
Every restaurant in Dubai is approved from the kitchen backwards. Dubai Municipality’s Food Safety Department has to approve the layout, finishes, extract, grease management and hand-wash provision before a trade licence can be activated; Civil Defence has to approve the extract route, suppression and escape; the landlord has to accept where the duct discharges; DEWA has to release the load. A beautiful front of house built before those are settled is a beautiful room nobody can eat in.
We design and build F&B outlets with the kitchen as the first drawing, not the last. The extract route, grease trap, floor drains and gas are set out against the equipment supplier’s schedule before a partition is framed, the Food Control and Civil Defence submissions go in with the landlord package, and the bar, counters and feature joinery are made in our own workshop during the approval window. Accogliente in JVC — dining room, perforated feature wall, bar and service areas — was delivered that way, complete.
What an F&B fit out covers
Full-service restaurants, cafés and coffee shops, bars and lounges, cloud kitchens and food-hall units. The kitchen scope changes; the process does not.
Seating to capacity and circulation rules, banquettes, feature walls and finishes that survive cleaning and chairs.
Bars, service counters, back-bar displays and coffee stations with sinks, drainage, power and refrigeration provision built in.
Floors with falls, washable walls and ceilings, hoods and duct routes to a compliant discharge, coordinated with the equipment supplier.
Grease traps, floor drains and wash-up to Food Control requirements; gas by approved installers, certified before connection.
Shading, lighting, furniture and the landlord and municipality consents a terrace needs before chairs go out.
Re-fits of trading outlets, phased overnight or over a short closure, with the kitchen kept compliant throughout.
Approvals
Six parties, and the kitchen drawing is what most of them are looking at. We prepare one coordinated set and submit it to all of them in parallel.
How we handle approvalsThe building approves the fit out drawings, the shopfront and — critically for F&B — the extract route. Many towers and malls have a designated kitchen-extract riser or a required discharge point, and some will not accept an outlet whose hood cannot reach it. We confirm the route exists before the lease is relied on, not after the kitchen is designed.
The Food Safety Department reviews the kitchen layout against its requirements: workflow from receiving to service, separation of raw and cooked preparation, washable floor, wall and ceiling finishes, hand-wash basins, grease management, extract and pest-proofing. Design approval comes before construction, and an inspection of the finished kitchen comes before the trade licence is activated. Nothing else matters if this is not right.
Mainland outlets go to Dubai Municipality for the fit out permit. Outlets in JLT go to DMCC, in Design District to DDA, in JVC and the PCFC areas to Trakhees. Each has its own drawing standard and approved-contractor register, and the set is prepared for the one that governs your unit.
Kitchen extract and its fire damper, kitchen suppression, detection, emergency lighting and escape routes are all DCD matters, with a drawing approval and an inspection before opening. A commercial kitchen is the most scrutinised fit out Civil Defence sees, and we submit it with the main package rather than at the end.
A commercial kitchen’s electrical load is far above an office of the same area, and usually needs a new board and a DEWA load approval. Gas — LPG cylinders or a piped supply — is installed only by an approved installer and certified before connection. Both are raised at week one because neither can be hurried.
Food Control inspects the finished kitchen, Civil Defence inspects the fire systems, the landlord signs off and releases the deposit, and the trade licence is activated. We hand over as-built drawings, test certificates and the maintenance schedule for the extract and grease system, which the inspector will ask about on the next visit.
Recent F&B and commercial work
JVC, Al Quoz, JLT, Jumeirah, Mirdif and Sharjah.
Scope & programme
We price line by line in a BOQ after surveying the unit and reading the equipment schedule, and issue a programme keyed to the approval gates and your opening date. These are the decisions that move both.
Extract, grease, drainage, gas, suppression and the electrical load are the largest lines in almost every F&B fit out, and the ones that cannot be value-engineered after Food Control has approved the layout. The equipment itself is usually supplied separately; we coordinate against its schedule.
A short run to a landlord-provided riser is one cost; a long duct to a discharge point at roof level with fire dampers and attenuation is another. This is confirmed at survey because it can decide whether the unit works for a kitchen at all.
Bars with back-bar display, refrigeration and sinks are the most complex joinery in the building. Feature walls, like the perforated metal screen at Accogliente, are fabrication problems solved in the workshop and dry-assembled before site.
Flooring that takes chairs and spills, wall finishes that clean, upholstery specified for commercial wear. Cheap finishes in a restaurant are replaced within the first lease term.
A unit with a kitchen riser, grease line and adequate power is a different scope from one without. The lease’s landlord-works schedule is checked against the survey before we price.
Food Control design approval, the extract route, gas certification and the equipment delivery date. We run the submissions in parallel and build the bar and joinery in our workshop during the wait.
What you will cook decides the kitchen, and the kitchen decides the fit out. Tell us the concept, the unit and the opening date; we will survey, confirm the extract route and the approval chain, and come back with a programme and a BOQ priced line by line.
Common questions
Food Control, extract, gas, approvals and trading through a re-fit. If yours is not here, call +971 50 448 3095.
The landlord or mall fit out permit, Dubai Municipality Food Control design approval of the kitchen, the fit out permit from the jurisdiction’s authority (Dubai Municipality, DMCC, DDA or Trakhees), Dubai Civil Defence approval of the extract, suppression and escape, DEWA load approval, and gas certification by an approved installer. Then Food Control and Civil Defence inspect the finished outlet before the trade licence is activated. We handle every one of them as part of our contract.
A workflow that moves from receiving and storage through preparation to service without crossing back, separation of raw and cooked preparation, washable and sealed floor, wall and ceiling finishes, hand-wash basins where staff need them, grease management on the drainage, extract over cooking equipment, pest-proofing and adequate storage. The design is approved before construction and the built kitchen is inspected before opening.
No. The deciding factor is usually the extract route: the hood needs a duct to a compliant discharge point, and many buildings only provide that through a designated riser, or not at all. Grease drainage and electrical capacity follow. We survey the unit before the lease is relied on and tell you whether a full kitchen, a limited kitchen or a reheat-only operation is realistic there.
We build everything the kitchen sits in and connects to: floors with falls and drains, washable walls and ceilings, extract and make-up air, grease traps, gas and the electrical supply, coordinated against the equipment supplier’s schedule so every appliance lands on its services. The cooking equipment is usually supplied and commissioned by a specialist supplier, and we work to their drawings.
Yes. Bars, back-bar displays, service counters, coffee stations, banquettes, host stands and feature walls are made in our own Al Quoz workshop, with sinks, drainage, refrigeration provision and power designed in. Loose tables and chairs we either make or procure to the specification. See bespoke furniture.
Yes. Front-of-house re-fits can be phased overnight or over a short closure, with joinery pre-built in the workshop and swapped in sequence. Kitchen changes are harder, because Food Control approval and inspection apply to the altered layout, and we plan those around the quietest trading period.
Yes. Shading, lighting, furniture and planting for terraces, with the landlord’s consent and the municipality permit outdoor seating on a public frontage needs. Our landscaping team handles the external works where a terrace is being built rather than furnished.
It is set by the approval chain — Food Control design approval, the extract route and Civil Defence in particular — and by the kitchen equipment lead time, more than by the floor area. We issue a dated programme keyed to those gates and your opening date before mobilising, and build the bar and joinery in our workshop while the approvals run.
Yes. The same process applies across the UAE with the local authority substituted: Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority and the Department of Municipalities and Transport in Abu Dhabi, Sharjah Municipality in Sharjah. See the Abu Dhabi page.
