For Toby’s Estate Darling Square, the latest outpost for one of Australia’s leading café chains, Studio Tate imagined a highly resolved design outcome that marries the client's premium brand positioning as a leading coffee roaster with site context, history and desire to explore materiality. By harnessing the brand story, values and positioning, Studio Tate created a café experience that elevates the business with a design concept that speaks deeply to the contemporary hospitality experience and a one-size-does-NOT-fit-all ethos.

Inserted into the ground floor of the new Woods Bagot-designed headquarters for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia at Darling Square, an intelligent approach was crucial to link the Toby’s Estate fit-out with the foyer design. The design narrative drew inspiration from historic banks and treasuries, with the gravitas of the gold guarded within their walls evoked by a rich palette of colours and warm, metallic finishes.

The vintage sensibility finds itself in the materiality, with classic deep stones and marbles and plush velvet upholstery; and extends to considered details such as the bullnose benchtops, replete with brass kick rails, or high bars with integrated lighting, reminiscent of bankers’ desks. Upholstered banquettes have small stone ledges to the rear – not for writing cheques, but for resting a cup of coffee.