Hunza is a small café with big ambitions. By day it’s a relaxed neighbourhood spot serving homemade bread, artisan pastries, fresh smoothies, and varied breakfasts. By night, the same footprint needed to become a vibrant bar, complete with creative cocktails and an atmosphere built for a completely different crowd. The brief was to design one space that could genuinely serve two identities, without compromising either.
Rather than treating this as two separate fit outs, we focused on the elements that could carry the transformation on their own: lighting, materials and finishes, foliage, and the treatment of the floor and ceiling. The existing arches became the anchor for the whole scheme. We used them to frame the space with layered planting and blue floral accents overhead, softening the architecture during the day and giving the room a lush, Mediterranean feel. At night, the same arches are outlined in neon, instantly shifting the mood from daytime café to late night bar without a single piece of furniture needing to move. Warm plaster walls, patterned tiled flooring, and rattan lighting fixtures carry through both moods, so the space always feels considered rather than like two rooms stitched together.
THE TRANSFORMATION
The before and after tells the story clearly. Hunza’s original interior was functional but generic: plain arched openings, standard tiling, and little sense of atmosphere beyond a few hanging plants. The redesign introduces textured lime plaster walls, an oversized foliage canopy across the ceiling, rich patterned floor tiles, terracotta pendant lighting, and wrought iron bar seating that nods to Mediterranean design without feeling themed. The bar itself has been rebuilt as a genuine focal point, with a glowing backlit counter that becomes the centrepiece once the lights go down.
The result is a space that feels genuinely different depending on the hour, without needing a full changeover. In daylight, Hunza reads as sunlit, green, and relaxed, the kind of place you’d linger over breakfast. After dark, the same arches, the same foliage, the same floor plan take on a completely different energy, lit in neon pink and blue, with the bar glowing as the room’s anchor. It’s a single design solution built around Hunza’s dual identity, giving the café a genuinely immersive day to night experience that guests will remember either way.
