In Melbourne’s Monaco House laneway, Palace Coffee by KKAP blends intimacy, design, and community into an espresso ritual worth lingering for.
Conceived by Kerry Kounnapis Architecture Practice (KKAP), the design deftly merges the intimacy of a Milanese espresso counter with the grit and poetry of Melbourne’s laneway culture. The result is a place that transcends the mere exchange of coffee for currency, instead choreographing a daily ritual of interaction, observation, and pause.
Against the stoic masonry of the Melbourne Club, KKAP has composed a façade in sculptural oxide-red steel and perforated spotted gum timber, at once robust and tactile. It signals warmth without dilution, a kind of visual handshake to passersby. The recessed entry – more threshold than doorway – dilates the narrow laneway into a stage where baristas and patrons are equally performers, their movements visible through a seamless serving window that blurs the inside-outside boundary.
Here, design is a facilitator of tempo. The frontage invites lingering without blocking flow; the counter becomes both workbench and social anchor. Drawing on the lineage of Pellegrini’s and the Nicholas Building, Palace Coffee channels a distinctly Melbourne nostalgia through a modernist lens, rejecting pastiche in favour of atmosphere distilled to essentials: timber, steel, and light.
Kounnapis speaks of connection as central to the project, and it shows in the details. Sparkling water arrives with every espresso; the back-lit fibreglass ceiling lends a soft, almost domestic glow; service points are tucked from sight, allowing the material palette and human exchange to take precedence. It is architecture in service to micro-moments – the pause before a meeting, the quick hello between regulars, the tactile comfort of a well-worn timber surface under the hand.
Charlotte Devereux, who also operates Fitzroy’s Burnside, reinforces this ethos of hospitality without pretension. Her vision for Palace Coffee is one where conversation flows as readily as caffeine, where design and service operate in a seamless duet. The footprint may be small, but the ambition – to weave community into the city’s daily rhythm – is expansive.
