Local studio EBBA Architects has designed a store for eyewear brand Cubitts that preserves and draws on the original 1930s interior of the traditional F Cooke restaurant on London's Broadway Market.
The restaurant, which sold cockney dishes such as jellied eel and pie and mash, had been located on the east London street since 1900 but was given a modernist update in the 1930s.
The Cubitts store on Broadway Market is located inside a former restaurant
EBBA Architects turned the space into a 145-square-metre Cubitts store but kept almost all the original interiors of the Grade II-listed restaurant, which had been unoccupied since 2019.
F Cooke's marble tables were given new legs made from stained birch plywood and now hold eyewear display cases in a sunny hue that matches the original wall tiles. Pale yellow tiles clad the walls
"The tables are original but we designed the legs to kind of make it feel like a new feature," EBBA Architects founder Benni Allan told Dezeen.
"The table has just been scrubbed up," he said. "Imagine how many nice pies have been eaten on that table."
"I think what's nice is that everything below [the tables] has had this quite warm treatment to bring in a nice texture and tone, and then everything above is much lighter."
Different coloured material samples are displayed on wooden shelves
The studio also kept the original stained-glass windows and the counter that used to serve food, turning it into a point of s...