Reuben Hills

Scanning the dense crush of attractive faces, my eyes fell on a nose coloured brown with coffee grind. Instantly I knew this to be the face of Reuben Hills co-owner Russell Beard – a man constitutionally devout to the science and the art of coffee. As he does every Friday, Beard was preparing for a free public cupping (a practice a bit like wine tasting) in the purpose-built space above his cafe.

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The former rear roller door is now the front entry.

Image: Florian Groehn

In the back-of-house area at Reuben Hills there is no mirror by the door in which to catch sight of a coffee-smeared nose before greeting patrons. This is because there is no back-of-house at Reuben Hills. Beard’s philosophy of transparency and his passion for community engagement and connoisseurship is reflected in the design of an establishment that makes a feature of what is customarily hidden from public view.

Nestled away from the main drag in Surry Hills, Reuben Hills, designed by Melbourne-based boutique architecture firm Herbert & Mason, unashamedly declares itself a cut above. I spoke with Alana Cooke and Matthew Herbert about the challenge of designing a shrine to coffee given the constraints of the deep, narrow site of a former printing factory. The space spans the length between two parallel streets and comprises a coffee house on ground level with a grinding and roasting station, production office and cupping area overhead, with alfresco seating at the front entrance and potential to mirror this setup in the rear laneway.

From the street aspect, Reuben Hills is a very unassuming establishment. But stepping into the space your head instinctively cranes to glimpse just how deep it really is. And then you look up. Cooke and Herbert call these semicircular cut-outs “moments.” These segments are cut from the floor/ceiling function firstly to draw the eye up to what’s happening on the floor above, secondly to allow the sound generated by a bustling concrete-clad cafe to escape into the void, and thirdly to offset a sense of being closed in by the narrow space.

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Semicircular shapes are cut out of the brick wall.

Image: Florian Groehn

On paper, given a materials list limited to pre-existing exposed brick, polished concrete underfoot, copper utility fixtures, concrete blocks for the bar and concrete tiles for the bench seats, the fitout conjures a cold, industrial aesthetic. However, the glow of orange feature lighting and the flood of natural light from the open roller door and skylights imbue the space with warmth.

The key here to creating a relaxed ambiance within a self-serious space, however, is not so much the lighting but a majority seating arrangement that doesn’t compartmentalize patrons into select groups. While there are tables that allow for intimate gatherings of two to six, the Italian-style standing bar bench, a long seated bench, wooden alfresco stools at the front and a central tiled table at the rear all encourage patrons to intermingle or at least feel comfortable in close proximity to others.

Self-seriousness in Australia is not easy to get away with and the highly principled aesthetic of Reuben Hills treads along the bleeding edge of pretentiousness. However, Cooke and Herbert have calculated all the checks and balances to keep this establishment from toppling to its death. And thankfully they haven’t resorted to a voguish shabby-chic hipster look. Reuben Hills is Sydney’s boldest space established in the honour of coffee but it is also a testament to collaboration. Beard, Cooke and Herbert are daring players in their respective fields and everyone involved with this success story agrees that the result came from an intense and trusting client-architect relationship.