On a busy stretch of Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles’ Silver Lake neighborhood, Dear Guest Cafe offers an imaginative take on the local bakery. Designed by Los Angeles-based Studio Jialun Xiong, the 1,100-square-foot interior combines the elegance of 1930s Art Deco with playful, dreamlike details inspired by animated worlds.
The design also draws from Parisian boutique hotels and traditional Japanese ryokans, using hospitality rituals to shape the customer experience. Guests enter through an outdoor seating area with custom butter-yellow ombré tabletops and the studio’s Extrusion Stools. Inside, a concierge-style pastry counter is paired with European crown molding and a reflective silver ceiling that gives the space a slightly surreal character.
Geometry and repetition define much of the interior. Circles and rounded forms appear in the mirrors, while grid patterns are repeated across wall panels, banquettes, lighting and the bar. The cafe’s furnishings are almost entirely by Studio Jialun Xiong, including a soft-yellow Void Chair and a cocoa-brown leather Skeleton Lounge Chair.
Black glazed tiles and warm gray quartz surround the bar, whose pearlescent hot-glass backsplash adds another layer of texture. Pendant lights hang above the tables, while a patinated bronze, star-shaped joinery detail decorates a cabinet on the opposite wall. The bathroom continues the hotel-inspired theme with silver walls and hand-painted illustrations.
Studio founder Jialun Xiong describes the cafe as a place that should feel removed from everyday life without becoming maximalist. Its layered palette, custom furniture and carefully repeated forms are intended to balance whimsy with a quiet sense of order, revealing small unusual details as guests spend time in the space.
Sources: Design Milk.