Home · Category
Beirut has endured war, destruction and rebirth, yet the 2020 explosion left wounds unlike any before. Through grief, memory and resilience, its people continue to mourn, rebuild and hope.
Philippe Jabre’s imposing art collection will soon have a new home in the mountains above Beirut. Gaby Daher and Jean-Louis Mainguy, art dealer and interior architect, are remodelling Jabre’s summer residence, a 19th century traditional Lebanese house, and adjacent bell foundry in Beit …
The Four Seasons Hotel Beirut has a new rooftop playground. The best part is it’s open year round, so you can keep that summer feeling going even when the clouds roll in. Just because autumn is rolling in doesn’t mean you have to concede summer’s over. The pool, bar and lounge ato…
A time-honoured boutique hotel tucked between the Phoenicia and a new tower, Beirut's Le Vendôme trades flashy design for European chic, hush-hush service and the rare luxury of genuine seclusion.
Dating only to 1961, the Phoenicia nonetheless brims with history, an enduring symbol of Lebanon's jet-set prewar years, all gilded grandeur, sweeping staircases and palatial pillars that still enchant guests today.
Beirut's name is thought to derive from be'erot, meaning wells, a nod to the fertility of its water table. Fittingly, a sunken well lies at the heart of the winning design for the Beirut Museum of Art.
Caught between transformation and disintegration, Lebanon still nurtures the Middle East's most developed artistic community, and the Beirut Art Fair is where its galleries, institutions and rising talents converge each year.
A Beirut institution that has hosted kings, queens and film stars, survived the civil war and political turmoil, and lives on as a temple to art, cognac and old-world glamour.
On Opera Gallery's opening night in Beirut, it was neither the pre-Cubist Picasso nor the early Dali that captivated. The real star was Korean artist Seo Young Deok's terrace sculpture, 'Meditation 16'.
On the opening night of the Beirut Art Fair, a live sheep named Faro, shorn and inscribed with a mysterious pattern of black dots, wandered among the elegant crowd as the show's improbable centrepiece.
High in Sursock Tower, an eighteen-floor Ashrafieh high-rise designed by the late Pierre Khoury, our writer meets its makers. The firm of Jamil Saab kept several floors of the building to serve as their corporate headquarters.
In 2010, painter Nabil Nahas marked forty years of creativity with a retrospective at the Beirut Exhibition Centre. Remarkably, it was the prolific artist's first show at home, ending an eighteen-year absence from his country of birth.
Zaha Hadid's Issam Fares Institute transports our writer to another time, recalling a first visit to Tripoli's unfinished Rashid Karami Fair, where Oscar Niemeyer's monumental concrete forms still rise from a landscaped garden, abandoned before civil war.
Velvet curtains part on a stage where schoolchildren, ballet dancers, a funeral march and a runaway bride drift past in exaggerated slow motion, set to melancholic classical music amid baroque, hypnotic splendour.
Step inside Caracalla and you enter a world of grand columns, ornate frescoes and velveteen diwans, at once ancient and Oriental. Everyone here moves with a dancer's gait, in hushed, international seriousness.
The fourth edition of the region's first art fair returns to Beirut from 19 to 23 September, hosting 40 galleries from more than 15 countries. Director Laure d'Hauteville reflects on fifteen years of building a scene.
In creating Villa Clara, husband-and-wife team Olivier Gougeon and Marie-Hélène Mouawad have not only brought a little of old Beirut back to life, they have turned it into a delicious taste of the times.
The man who made Beirut love the BRGR returns with an upscale steakhouse, complete with shellfish bar and an Al Capone-esque cigar lounge, at the heart of the city's glittering new seafront development.
Pritzker-winning Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron have designed perhaps the most arresting addition to Beirut's skyline in decades. A building is a building, Jacques Herzog tells Bespoke; it cannot be read like a book.
Mention Beirut to any international traveller and two iconic, luxurious and pioneering hotels immediately come to mind. And while Le Vendôme and the Phoenicia have many things in common, they’re just as unlike each other. No question, they are an ideal pair.
The Phoenicia Hotel was a dream for Najib Salha – a prominent Lebanese businessman – who in the year 1953, during Lebanon’s Golden Era, envisioned to build a world class hotel on the shores of Beirut. With a group of investors, Mr. Salha founded “La Société des Grands Hotels du Liban” and
Makram Kadi and his partner Ziad Jamaleddine are breathing life into the reclaimed land off the coast of Beirut’s Central District (known as Downtown), and providing artists much-needed space to showcase their work near the city centre. The two Lebanese architects recently completed the Be
Against a backdrop of an international financial crisis that has seen the number of transactions and demand for realty drop by as much as 50 per cent in some of the region’s capitals, Beirut continues to show its strength and resilience. Bespoke took the opportunity to talk candidly with o
In the midst of rapidly developing downtown Beirut a thing of true sophistication and style has appeared. Le Gray, the city’s latest boutique luxury hotel, is set to spearhead a wave of more refined Middle Eastern 5-star hotels.
If cooking styles were a piece of women’s clothing, Richard Mebkhout’s culinary approach and finesse would be the quintessential little black dress. Always classy, elegant and never out of style, we challenged him to devise an up-to-the-minute meal of raw food, and he effortlessly came up
What Souk el Tayeb Creator Kamal Mouzawak What An organic produce market Why Healthy options and a respect for local traditions and farmers bring a fresh outlook to organic eating www.soukeltayeb.com In a day and age where ‘going green’ has become the latest trend, eating organic is the ho
What Chez Jean-Claude Where Rue Gabriel Khabbaz, Achrafieh, Beirut, Lebanon Since October 2009 Why A charming, intimate and utterly authentic French dining experience that has considerably raised the bar. Honestly, new restaurants bore me probably because they’re rarely new. Inside you wil
Section: escape / wedding planning Nuptial dreams With Beirut overshadowing all other cities as the wedding destination of choice for Middle Eastern couples, it is imperative to know just who is the best Lebanese wedding planner. To make things really interesting the editorial team at Besp
Artist, air brusher and tattooist Hady Beydoun has made a name for himself with his extraordinary designs, and unbounded imagination.
Gemmayzeh may be well known for its hundreds of restaurants and pubs, but this old Beirut neighbourhood has commendably held on to its cultural identity despite the rapid popularisation of its main artery, Gouraud Street.
As both an architect and an interior designer Galal Mahmoud has a distinct edge over his competition. Sara Hamzeh meets with head of GM Architects, to acquire some insight into his world of blueprints.
The tables have turned. Once controversial, backgammon now sits at the heart of Arab culture. Andrea Stanton reveals the secret behind this everlasting game.
There is very little that separates civilizations in the world of design. And no one has found harmony between the minimalist Far East and the self-indulgent Middle East as well as Lebanese-born Nada Debs. Rouba Mourtada speaks to designer about her vision and her craft.
When it comes to good living while you’re away from home, there is only one way to go: up. Bespoke has selected the most exclusive penthouses in some of the world’s most exciting cities for business and pleasure.