Photography by Nour El Refai
On Egypt’s North Coast, where the Mediterranean recedes into a horizon of pale blues and mineral sands, Beefbar Almaza Bay is conceived as a calibrated state of mind. Designed by Else Lab, the project unfolds as an exercise in restraint—an architecture that listens before it speaks.
Set along the quiet shoreline of Almaza Bay, the restaurant resists the familiar tropes of coastal design. There is no overt scenography, no theatrical gestures aimed at spectacle. Instead, Else Lab draws from the most elemental condition of the site: the slow, horizontal movement of the sea. These wave-like lines quietly structure the project, shaping planters, handrails, and thresholds with a continuity that feels both deliberate and effortless. Architecture becomes a horizon—something you sense before you consciously register.
At the heart of the space, a central bar anchors the composition. Its patterned flooring radiates outward, creating a subtle centrifugal force that organizes circulation without enforcing it. This is not a plan that instructs; it suggests. The material palette remains intentionally limited, allowing texture, shadow, and light to perform the expressive work. As the sun arcs across the sky, surfaces shift almost imperceptibly, and by dusk the space transitions seamlessly into a nocturnal atmosphere—calibrated rather than transformed.
Else Lab’s sensitivity to the “soft scape” is particularly evident here. Plantings are not decorative punctuation but integral architectural elements, establishing rhythm and depth while grounding the space in its coastal ecology. Sheer curtains, animated by the sea breeze, act as ephemeral partitions—blurring interior and exterior, public and intimate. These gestures speak to a studio deeply invested in the emotional afterlife of design: how space is felt, inhabited, remembered.
The palette draws directly from its surroundings—sand-toned surfaces, sun-bleached woods, muted marine hues—creating an environment that feels neither imposed nor over-designed. Views are choreographed with care: sometimes framed to heighten intimacy, sometimes left deliberately open so that the horizon asserts itself. In these moments, architecture steps back, allowing landscape and light to complete the composition.
This approach is emblematic of Else Lab’s broader philosophy. Founded by Emy Hussein, and operating within the ecosystem of Alchemy Group, the studio consistently works “beyond the realm of form,” privileging the intangible dimensions of space—emotion, memory, atmosphere. With a multidisciplinary practice spanning architecture, interiors, landscape, product, and brand design, Else Lab is less concerned with signatures than with states of being.
At Beefbar Almaza Bay, this ethos finds a particularly eloquent expression. The project does not seek to redefine the beachfront restaurant; it refines it. Dining here becomes a slow choreography between land, sea, light, and material—an experience attuned to time rather than trend. It is architecture as mediation, quietly aligning human ritual with the rhythms of its setting.
In a region often defined by excess, Beefbar Almaza Bay stands apart through its measured intelligence. It reminds us that luxury today is not about accumulation, but about clarity—and that the most enduring designs are those that know when to recede, allowing place itself to take center stage.
