The resort’s Il Caffè sheds its everyday self this season and reopens as something looser, greener, and far more romantic. A note from the marina on slow pizza, Michelin gelato, and the particular art of staging an Italian summer in the Gulf.
There is an hour on Jumeira Bay, somewhere after the worst of the heat has burned off and before the lights come up across the water, when the marina turns the color of ripe apricot, and the whole peninsula seems to exhale. This, you sense almost immediately, is the hour La Terrazza was made for.
From 16 June until the end of September, Il Caffè at Bvlgari Resort Dubai has been reimagined as La Terrazza, a seasonal residency drawn from L’Estate Italiana, the summer concept now unfolding across Bvlgari Hotels & Resorts. The brief was simple and quietly ambitious: take the spirit of an Italian summer, the long lunches and longer evenings. Moreover, the gelato is eaten standing up, which translates to a city that lives after dark.
The transformation reads across two moods. Indoors, the room has been softened into something close to a summer house in the hills. Floral fabrics, washes of pale yellow, citrus, and greenery layered until the space feels less designed than inherited. Step outside, and the register shifts. The old terrace has been enclosed within a considered architectural structure, now sheltered yet still open to the marina. Its palette warmed with terracotta and dense planting that creeps across both rooms like a garden allowed to have its way. The effect is coherent without being matched, which is the harder and more expensive thing to pull off.
Pizza, made in full view at La Terrazza
At the heart of the outdoor terrazza, behind an open counter, the dough is being worked by hand. This is Pizza Bar by Pier Daniele Seu, the Roman chef behind Seu Pizza Illuminati. He is also a winner of 50 Top Pizza’s Pizza Chef of the Year. Seu has been in conversation with Bvlgari Resort Dubai since 2020. Long enough for the partnership to have earned Il Caffè a place among the 16 best pizzerias in the Asia-Pacific region. He wears the accolades lightly.
There is a theatre from where you can watch it happen, the slap of the dough and the slide of the peel. The menu keeps its signatures and rotates two seasonal pizzas each month. And closes on its Pizza Dolce, a sweet, faintly mischievous note on which to end.
A gelato cart, and a Michelin pedigree behind it
The gelato has been promoted. Il Gelato by Niko Romito now arrives on a wheeled cart into the heart of La Terrazza for the season. Romito is the chef of the three-Michelin-starred Reale in Abruzzo and the curator-chef across Bvlgari’s hotels. His gelato reflects that restraint: fresh milk, natural ingredients, nothing hurried. Pistacchio, Nocciola, and Cioccolato hold the line, but the season is built around what changes.
From July, a Sicilian flavor of Noto almonds and ripe figs. In August, Gianduja, the Piedmontese marriage of fine chocolate and toasted hazelnut, is folded into something light enough to eat in the heat. Plan your visits around them if you are the sort of person who plans visits around such things.
Beyond the two icons, a new seasonal menu runs throughout the day, from breakfast coffee to late dinner. Fresh antipasti, handmade pasta, and the lighter end of the Italian repertoire, perfect for high summer.
The FIFA World Cup Season in Dubai, on the resort’s own terms
It would have been easy for a property like this to ignore the noise of the tournament outside its gates. Instead, La Terrazza has leaned in on its own terms. Through the World Cup window, from 11 June to 19 July, the space becomes a gathering place for families and football people alike. The matches on screen, the marina behind them, a plate of pasta within reach. On the key nights, it does not close at all and runs a full 24 hours, so there is no kickoff. However unsociable the hour in the Gulf, it goes unwatched. The best part is that Shisha is served on the terrace throughout.
To mark the opening, the resort worked with the Emirati footballer Yahya Al Ghassani. “La Terrazza is our way of giving this space a new cultural purpose. Creating something that genuinely connects with our guests, our community, and the rhythm of the city,” says Pep Lozano, General Manager of Bvlgari Resort Dubai. “We wanted it to feel alive: a place where the season unfolds naturally, where people return, and where every visit feels like it belongs to something larger than a single evening.”
What lingers, in the end, is not any single dish but the looseness of the thing. A summer staged with real care and then left to breathe. There are more collaborations and themed evenings still to be announced across the four-month run. We will update as soon as we have more.
The Essentials About La Terrazza
- Season: 16 June to 30 September 2026
- Hours: Daily, 6:30 AM to 2:00 AM, with extended and 24-hour service on key World Cup dates (11 June to 19 July).
- On offer: Pizza Bar by Pier Daniele Seu, Il Gelato by Niko Romito, a seasonal Italian menu, terrace shisha, curated music, and live entertainment evenings
- Reservations: +971 4 777 5433 | dine.dubai@bulgarihotels.com | bulgarihotels.com/dubai
Images: Supplied
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