An independent coffee house
A little space.
A slower pace.
Warm walnut. Morning light. Coffee worth staying for. Step inside our little corner of the world.
01 Construction
Built, not decorated.
The counter went in before the floor was poured, bolted to a steel frame set into the slab. Take every fitting out of this room and there is still a room. Most fit-outs are the other way round, which is why they date.
- 0
- parts in the fit-out
- 0
- weeks on site
- 0
- suppliers within forty miles
Scroll to explore the finished room, from the materials to the details behind the counter.
02 The counter
Three metres of end-grain oak.
A fluted front cut from one board, a forty-millimetre honed stone top with a five-millimetre arris, and a brass rail at the foot that six years of shoes have worn bright in two places. It is the only thing here we would not change.
- Front 40 flutes at 76 mm centres
- Top 40 mm honed stone, 50 mm overhang
- Rail 42 mm brass on three brackets
03 The machine
A lever machine, rebuilt every spring.
Two groups, a saturated brass boiler, eleven litres descaled by hand each March. Thirty-eight seconds at nine bars. We have never once dialled it in with an app, and we are not going to start.
If it cannot be fixed with a 13 mm spanner, it does not go behind the counter.
04 Palettes
Five rooms. One drawing.
Every Sonder is the same plan in a different set of materials, chosen for the light the city actually gets. Pick one — the room changes while you watch.
Warm walnut, terracotta tile and pale stone, with soft light across the counter.
London · 14 Ravey Street, EC2A
05 Specification
The full schedule.
Drawn once in 2019 and built five times since. Anything not on this list was decided on site, which is usually where it should be decided.
- Footprint
- 3.2 × 3.0 m internal
- Counter
- 3,050 mm end-grain oak, 40 mm honed stone
- Seats
- Nine — three stools, three tables
- Machine
- Two-group lever, 11 L saturated brass boiler
- Grinder
- 83 mm flat burr, single dose
- Lighting
- Three opal pendants, 2700 K, held at 40%
- Floor
- Terracotta tile, fine inset joints
- Acoustic
- 0.6 s reverberation at 1 kHz
06 Visit
Open from seven.
Filter from seven, espresso from half past. The last pour is at four and we mean it, because the person pulling it has been standing since six.
- Monday – Friday
- 07:00 – 16:00
- Saturday
- 08:00 – 16:00
- Sunday
- 09:00 – 15:00