This London Café's Softly Glowing Ceiling Holds the Cure to the Gloomiest Days — It's the Lighting Idea to Steal That Brings the Sunshine Indoors
The interiors of Cup of Joy might have just cracked the secret to a space glowing with sunshine year-round. We're taking notes for when it's next dark
Simply looking at the textured, earthy terracotta walls of Marylebone's new specialty café, Cup of Joy, I could swear they smell of chocolate — or like the aromatic interior of a well-used coffee grinder. This kind of synesthesia might seem completely irrelevant, or rather obvious, to you, but acquires new meaning as you hear about founder Benni Allan's hopes and inspirations for this address.
The sensory atmosphere of Cup of Joy, which opened its doors last month, was informed by the richness found in stone walls and courtyard spaces in Istanbul, Turkey, where the concept is originally from. Nestled on 28 Blandford Street, the café strives to bring the city's coffee-drinking culture to the heart of the British capital, along with the warmth of its Mediterranean sun.
Spanning two stories over a surface of 168 square meters, the London coffee shop was designed by EBBA Architects to evoke a sense of calm and delight, a goal the studio set out to achieve through natural materials — clay plaster, Portland stone, timber, oak — textures and palettes that are subconsciously comforting. Though really, it's the lighting that takes the prize and makes Cup of Joy one of the most inspiring design cafés to know in the Big Smoke.
How Cup of Joy Takes Daylight Inside
"The concept was to create an interior that spoke to the character of Istanbul, where the brand originates. From the very beginning the concept started with materials, and an intent to create something that could translate a feeling of being somewhere else," explained the designers.
Lighting, we know, is one of the key elements in every self-respecting restaurant design project, and EBBA Architects weren't caught unprepared. Overhead at Cup of Joy, "a paneled ceiling of timber and opaque glass distributes light evenly across the room, avoiding the harsh directionality of conventional hospitality lighting," the team explains on its website.
Rather than worrying about the intensity of light specifically, the glow produced by the vintage-inspired fixture deliberately provides "an ambient quality of light", which, together with woodblock flooring across both floors, a terracotta concrete staircase, and steel inserts here and there, gives the restaurant and coffee shop a grounding yet sophisticated aesthetic.
The main lighting moment of Cup of Joy, though more light inspiration awaits customers as they descend into its lower floor.
That's where they'll find this magical, almost alien-like, porthole window.
Image credit: Felix Speller. Design: EBBA Architects
Elsewhere in the establishment, essentially designed, industrial neon lighting adds another bright touch.
Image credit: Felix Speller. Design: EBBA Architects
Back-lit accents in hospitality are a theme we have explored widely in a recent trend spotlight titled Space Oddity, which discussed the resurgence of the 1970s-80s staple feature in London's nostalgia-fueled foodie scene and beyond.
Cup of Joy, though, doesn't make it too obvious, and pairs its checkered, illuminated ceilings, similar to the coffered ones at fellow Big Smoke hotspot TOWN Restaurant and Rome's Tramae eatery at Palazzo Talìa, with equally warming, industrial-style pendant neon lights, EBBA Architects' own Pulse paper lanterns, and Frandsen sconces.
Meanwhile, downstairs, a James Turrell-esque illuminated porthole window stretches a soft seating niche beyond its architectural limits in a statement nook that leans into the surreal.
What You'll Need for Your Own Dining Room Lighting Accents
Get ready to bring that courtyard feel indoors with our EBBA Architects and Cup of Joy-inspired styling tips.
That most of the furniture styled inside Cup of Joy was designed in-house by EBBA Architects is enough of a reason for design lovers to head there to check it out for themselves, along with fans of Copenhagen homeware brand FRAMA, which provided its iconic chairs. If your aim is to recreate Cuo of Joy's golden hour glow in your own dining room, though, just know you don't need a structural glass ceiling to borrow the effect, but a little creativity. Here are four steps to follow to get the look:
I. Diffuse before you decorate. Swap a single downlight or pendant for a large, evenly-lit plane — an opaque acrylic or fabric panel back-lit with a slim LED array — and place it right over the dining table. The goal is soft, edgeless light with no visible source, echoing the opaque-glass ceiling's "even illumination".
II. Heat up the color temperature. Aim for 2700-3000K to mimic filtered sun rather than clinical daylight, and let it wash over warm materials like textured oak, terracotta, and clay-toned paint. In doing so, light and surface reinforce each other, much like EBBA's terracotta and warm oak contrast of light and shade does.
Cup of Joy is filled with sunshine, inside out and year-round.
III. Layer in multiple — multi-level light sources. Add up to three secondary light sources, such as a paper lantern or a wall sconce, at a lower level, referencing EBBA's framed moments of light downstairs. This stops the room from feeling like a single flat glow and, instead, reads as light filtering through a courtyard canopy.
Yes, it's an industry-wide trick I picked up while interviewing Louise East, the designer behind the soulful Montcalm Mayfair hotel, who recommended that hotels always stick to low, mid, and high-level lighting schemes.
Keep the ceiling honest. A shallow lightbox recess (anywhere between 5 and 8cm deep) with a diffusing panel and warm LED strip is the domestic equivalent of EBBA Architects' timber-and-glass ceiling — achievable in a standard ceiling void, without the need to even invest in a skylight.
Now, Get Prepping
Keep an eye on our lifestyle pages for more design-worthy restaurant and hotel openings, or revisit our travel trends 2026 report for a full immersion in on-the-move inspiration.
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