The Review
Josette is what happens when a Dubai hospitality group with a serious kitchen commissions a serious artist to design a dining room and tells him not to hold back. Orange Hospitality — the group behind Gaia, Scalini, and Kyma — opened Josette on the ground floor of ICD Brookfield Place in 2024, with interiors by the British artist and decorator Luke Edward Hall. Hall is best known for his hand-painted illustrations and an aesthetic that cheerfully mixes Bloomsbury Group romanticism with saturated Memphis-era colour. He was given what amounts to a blank canvas in the middle of the world's most relentlessly grey financial district, and he responded in kind.
The result is a room that announces itself the moment you step off the ICD Brookfield atrium. Marshmallow pink banquettes, imperial green lacquered columns, a ceiling washed in peach, and custom Hall-drawn murals of cherubs, swans, and Parisian monuments that wrap the walls like a private commission at a country house. The floor is a monochromatic chequerboard; the light fixtures are hand-blown and shaped like inverted tulips; the crockery was designed specifically for the room, in the same colour palette as the walls. Against the surrounding sobriety of DIFC — suits, glass, greys, deal rooms — the effect is almost confrontational, and it is this confrontation that Josette trades on. The room is the first and second reason anyone books.
The third reason is the food, which is more serious than the interiors might suggest. The kitchen is run as a Parisian brasserie in the classical mode: plateau de fruits de mer arranged on tiered silver stands; escargot in garlic butter; steak tartare hand-cut at the table; entrecote with Josette's own pepper-cream sauce; Dover sole meuniere; a tarte tatin that takes thirty minutes and arrives caramelised, flambeed, and worth the wait. Prices at dinner land between AED 500 and AED 900 per person before wine — competitive for the quality, if steep for a brasserie by Parisian standards. The wine list leans Burgundy and Champagne heavy, with a reasonable by-the-glass programme that tracks the food well.
The clientele is DIFC at its most dressed-up: lawyers on first dates, private bankers on anniversaries, visiting art collectors on stopovers, and a steady flow of regional royalty. Sunday brunch and the weekend dinner service are the theatre shows; a quieter Tuesday lunch can be as close as DIFC gets to a civilised business meeting that doesn't feel like one. Josette is not trying to be a Parisian brasserie the way La Petite Maison is trying to be a Nicoise bistro — it is trying to be a jewel-box, and it succeeds on those terms.
Best for First Date & Birthday
Very few rooms in Dubai do as much of the heavy lifting for a first date as Josette. The lighting is flattering, the pink is disarming, the banquettes invite leaning in, and the menu is accessible enough to order without consulting. For birthdays, the kitchen will bring a small plated dessert with a candle without fanfare if asked; for larger birthday tables the long banquette along the main wall seats ten comfortably under Luke Edward Hall's largest mural. Where ROKA and Zuma are for closing deals, Josette is for the celebration afterwards.
Signature Dishes
The plateau de fruits de mer is the dish to order at least once — two tiers of langoustine, oyster, clam, crab, and whelk on crushed ice, arranged by the chef rather than tossed on a platter. The escargot with garlic butter is faultless. The entrecote with Josette sauce (a pepper-cream reduction the kitchen has made its own) is the workhorse main that justifies the bill. Dover sole meuniere is filleted at the table. For dessert, the tarte tatin is a thirty-minute commitment that arrives in a shallow copper pan, still hissing, with vanilla ice cream that melts into the pan juices — one of the best puddings in the city. The Sunday brunch menu adds lobster thermidor, duck a l'orange, and an unreasonable cheese trolley.
What to Know Before You Go
Josette is on the ground floor of ICD Brookfield Place on Al Mustaqbal Street, directly opposite the Emirates Towers metro station and a three-minute walk from DIFC Gate Village. Valet parking is available in the ICD Brookfield basement. Dress code is smart — jackets common at dinner, though not required; Dubai's DIFC dress tilt skews formal-creative. Reservations are essential and should be made five to ten days ahead for a Friday or Saturday evening, longer for weekend brunch. The main dining room books fastest; the secondary room at the rear, wrapped in the largest of Luke Edward Hall's murals, is the request seat for birthdays and proposals. Private dining is available for up to eighteen in a pink-panelled PDR at the rear. The kitchen is happy to accommodate vegetarian, pescatarian, and gluten-free requests with dedicated menus if given notice.
Also in Dubai, see La Petite Maison for the Nicoise DIFC counterpart, COYA Dubai for the Peruvian sister to the pink fantasy, and Cipriani Dubai for Venetian brasserie energy in the same postcode. For all First Date venues globally, see our guide. Explore more in our Dubai dining editorial.