When Sarah Sawaya and her brother Thomas first put up signage announcing the arrival of their new ceramics studio-meets-café, TigerBaby Coffee & Clay, in Toronto’s Little Portugal neighbourhood, a few passersby expressed early skepticism about their hybrid business model. After all, nobody wants the dust from pottery production sprinkled on top of their latte. Thankfully, the two halves of TigerBaby’s operations are given generous separation in its three-floor setup: The coffee bar takes up the main floor, while a 12-person handbuilding studio and 10-person wheel-throwing studio sit above and below it, respectively. On the other hand, the intersection of the two is exactly what makes the place so special.

The Sawaya siblings come to both worlds naturally: Sarah got into ceramics four years ago while working in biotech; as she began to consider making a career pivot to open a studio of her own, she floated the idea past Thomas — an industrial designer who also has eight years of barista experience under his belt. “I saw a natural alignment between these two things, because coffee meets ceramics in the cup that you serve it in,” says Sarah. “Our focus became on craft, community and creativity. Craft in both senses — the craft of ceramics, and the craft of coffee.” Community and creativity, for their part, are expressed throughout TigerBaby’s interiors via a long list of collaborators from the local design scene.

At the top of that list is the brand new studio Bronte Architecture, founded by Sarah’s friend Bronte Morris-Poolman. While the Sawayas siblings had plenty of their own ideas when it came to the look and feel of their business, Sarah says that Morris-Poolman played an essential role in shaping the “human elements” of the space — like the perfectly proportioned bar. “Thomas had the vision for the café in his head, but we needed someone’s help to communicate that,” says Sarah. “And when it came to the studios, it helped that Bronte does ceramics herself.”

The end result is a café filled with wood panelling that finds a comfortable middle ground between the deep brown of java beans and the earthy red of clay. (Red also appears as a key accent colour throughout the project, such as on the studio shelving and workbenches.) “I spent some time in Seoul while we were building this out,” Sarah says. “Every coffee shop in Korea is stunning and has these warm tones that were a real point of inspiration.” Meanwhile, grey concrete tiles at the front of the café introduce another clayish colour. Sarah admits that most people walk in expecting to see wall-to-wall tile — but in the end, tiles appear only on the bathroom backsplash, which features a small grid of glazed squares created by Sarah and Thomas themselves.

Otherwise, ceramics are reflected mainly through the mugs that line the shelves behind the bar and along the opposite wall. “I didn’t want it to be just one static element of pottery in the space,” says Thomas. “I wanted it to be always evolving.” With that in mind, TigerBaby’s custom cups — which are used for drink orders and also available for purchase — are a rotating range of designs that were conceived with specific drinks in mind. A mug that has a pattern reminiscent of a galaxy, for instance, is reserved for flat whites. “It’s the one that evokes the most feeling,” Thomas explains. “Oftentimes, the cups in coffee shops are just beige or grey, but we wanted to go in another direction.”

Another, earthier design with a flared shape is used for flat whites, cappuccinos and pour overs. “The flared opening gives you a wider aroma, and also helps with mouth feel,” Thomas continues. “The idea of being able to customize not just the taste of the drinks, but also how the customer feels while they’re holding the cups is exciting to us.” Sarah and Thomas have plans to introduce more, limited-edition designs over time. For now, the coffee bar also features a number of cups featuring pencil drawings done by their friends and family during one of the shop’s first community nights. “Maybe someone will come in, order a drink, and just happen to get served one that they made themselves.”

The showcase of creativity doesn’t stop there — thanks to Sarah and Thomas’s network, many members of the city’s design community will also recognize their handiwork throughout the café. “We have a lot of creative friends, and we wanted to involve them all as much as possible,” says Thomas. “That was a big priority for us.” Below, the Sawayas talk us through TigerBaby’s standout design details.

1

Beta mirrors by Studio Drum

After discovering the Beta mirrors by the design-build crew Studio Drum at IDS Toronto, Thomas commissioned the trio (which includes his university friend Mark Khoury) to fabricate a red version for the front of the café. “I wanted everything in here to have a story,” Thomas explains. “Working in coffee shops for so long, you learn that people will ask you about everything. If someone asks me about our mirror, I wanted it to be something that I could dig a little deeper into. With this one, I like that it’s not actually a glass mirror, but rather polished stainless steel. And a lot of people might think that it’s been spray-painted, but it’s actually been airbrushed to get that wispy look. It’s really cool how it’s made, and talking about that becomes a great way to strike up a conversation.”

2

Screenplay sconces by Eric Kirwin

Another member of Studio Drum, Eric Kirwin, is behind TigerBaby’s front sconce. Originally developed as a concept for the second edition of the recurring group exhibition Double Entendre, the light’s painted mesh front recreates the look of rainfall on a screen door. “Eric uses a very specific texture of paint to get the right runnyness so that some of it sticks to the screen and some of it drips off,” says Thomas. “The way it reflects that small moment of calm gives it another layer of emotion — another element of storytelling behind the design. Those are the types of things I wanted in the space.”

3

Lighting by Devansh Shah

When it came to the lighting above the bar, Thomas and Sarah worked with industrial designer Devansh Shah to develop custom linear pendants. “We met with him at different coffee shops to talk through our vision,” says Thomas. “We wanted a bit of airiness, just because we knew there was going to be so much wood in the space. We asked him to come up with something clear, and he ended up going with frosted acrylic panels.” The custom design is joined by one of Shah’s 3-D printed Tun pendants above the front seating area, as well as by a series of his Cobble pendants in the basement studio space.

4

Speakers by Earthworm Underground

Photo by Kathy Beutelspacher

“My partner is a DJ, so I have a personal interest in hi-fi,” says Thomas. “And every coffee shop needs a good sound system.” For TigerBaby’s setup, he turned to Samuel Wasserman, another former schoolmate who has since gone on to launch his own custom speaker-making studio, Earthworm Underground. “We sourced an all-in-one driver from China, and then he designed and built the cabinets around it. He came to us with this crazy-looking tiger veneer, and it works so well as this prominent element behind the bar.”

5

Millwork by Good Shit Studio Corp.

When it came to millwork, the Sawayas and Bronte Architecture partnered with Good Shit Studio Corp., which has become a go-to for many of the city’s hip cafés. (They’re also the fabrication team behind Rooms Coffee.) “They made the workbenches in the pottery studios, which are both beautiful and sturdy,” says Sarah. “After we posted a photo of them, a studio in Europe actually DM’ed us to ask who we’d purchased them from. We told them they were custom-made in Toronto — so they’re welcome to buy them, but they might be pretty expensive to ship.”

6

Logo by Adela Putra

“The name for TigerBaby comes from the name of our childhood cat, and we knew that we wanted to create a mascot to go with it,” says Thomas. “We worked with another good friend of mine, the tattoo artist Adela Putra, to come up with a playful, cutesy kind of character. We’ve named him Slip.”