Get the best of Domus straight to your inbox!

Her Majesty’s Pleasure

+tongtong’s latest project, Her Majesty’s Pleasure, is equal parts café, retail boutique, beauty salon and bar, all located under one roof in downtown Toronto.

Her Majesty’s Pleasure opens with the café/bar area.

The one side of the room consists of a seemingly ornate, yet stripped down, whitewashed bar topped with white marble. A line of geometrically folded copper stools reflect the coved lights under the bar, while across the room, bistro tables and custom-designed grey leather banquet seating with a geometric black steel base and Douglas fir foot rest line the wall. Riffing on the character of the bar, the sideboard features a white tile design with flecks of copper that resemble falling leaves.

+tongtong accentuated the towering 6-meter-high ceilings by installing industrial, multi-pane glass and steel window frames behind the bar, a treatment that plays with the space’s proportions and also allows patrons to view into the salon area from the bar. The bar and the salon are mirror images of the other, with identical white enameled steel pendant lights hanging in parallel, like voluptuous earrings complimenting a simple dress.

Immediately upon entering Her Majesty’s Pleasure, the eye is drawn to the architectural structure at the back of the space. Serving double duty as a pop-up retail boutique and reception to the salon, the monolith is “a product display system grown out of an architectural construction,” says Tong.

The pitched roof language is another nod to tradition, resembling barns and tree houses alike, but the geometric wooden shelving, backlit by LEDs, is fully modern.

Traveling past the wooden pop up, you arrive in the beauty salon. The marble bar from the entry wraps around, extending the experience into the salon and setting the stage for manicures. A long, raised wooden deck lined with Muskoka chairs defines the pedicure area. Above the deck, the coved ceiling is painted a fresh yellow and softly lit with a rafter-like structure assembled over top. Like the retail boutique, the pedicure area, which was designed with an outdoor porch in mind, feels separate of the main area.

+tongtong, Her Majesty’s Pleasure, Toronto

  The blowout lounge also eschews the typical salon set-up. Patrons sit at the marble bar as they get their hair done, with bartenders serving on the other side. Located across the aisle, the makeup lounge – which can be used to collect oneself after a treatment or booked for private functions – is articulated from the rest of the space as a wood cabin. At the center of the lounge, geometric copper stools surround a custom-designed table, which is topped with copper and white diamond-shaped tiles.  

Her Majesty’s Pleasure truly is a hybrid concept. A place where people can come for their morning coffee and croissant, a quick lunch, an after-work cocktail, to get ready for a night out, or to pamper themselves alone or with friends. Architecturally, the space reflects this ethos as well.