APF.KAFE restaurant review - Guangzhou, China

When the businessman Peter Fong decided to build his office on a nondescript corner lot in Guangzhou’s Tianhe quarter, he saw a perfect opportunity to also indulge his love for coffee.

For the Shanghai-based Lukstudio, the challenge was to stitch together the café, lounge, office and meeting spaces into a cohesive visual whole. Lead designer Christina Luk found the solution with an overhanging aluminium canopy that fairly floats along the length of the building to create distinct zones and entrances for the disparate spaces, while managing to insert a bijou garden into the whole.

APF.KAFE – an acronym for Fong’s office, Atelier Peter Fong – occupies a pristine end of the block, its interiors a pleasing geometry of ceiling voids and vitrine-like inserts that double as windows and display nooks. Here, as in the office space, Luk imposes a common palette of white walls and terrazzo floors that she says serve ‘as a canvas to capture light and shadow’.

High stools, and long communal tables lit by slender pendant lamps and angular wand sconces set the scene for the café’s cheerfully eclectic menu of fig and orange tarts, matcha and almond croissants, and iced chocolate alongside coffee sourced from Melbourne’s Seven Seeds and served in Jono Smart mugs.