Café Ondo

A neighbourhood café where cream plaster, sage tile and warm timber make a single, unhurried room.

Café Ondo occupies a narrow ground-floor shell on a busy Seongsu street, and the brief was to make it feel like an exhale from the moment you step off the pavement. We built the whole room around a long communal table in solid ash, lit from above by a run of warm pendants, and lined the service wall in a hand-glazed muted-sage tile that catches the light differently through the day. Cream microcement runs seamlessly across floor and counter so the space feels quiet underfoot, while a banquette in oatmeal bouclé softens the hard edges of a working café. Every material was chosen to age well under daily use — brass that patinas, timber that mellows, plaster that can be patched rather than replaced. Ondo now serves as both a morning coffee stop and an evening wine bar without changing a single fixture.