Architecture studio Red Deer sourced Gerolakkos stone and hand-crafted Lefkara lace from Cyprus, which it juxtaposed with stainless steel and oversized basket-like lamps at Zylia in Covent Garden.

The design of the restaurant, which serves food inspired by Greek Cypriot cooking, was adapted to suit the old factory building in which it's located and reference the provenance of its menu.

"We wanted to introduce a distinctly Cypriot sensibility into the existing shell, a former Victorian blacking factory in Covent Garden," Red Deer founding director Lionel Real de Azúa told Dezeen.

"The design became an exercise in dialogue rather than imitation, allowing materials, textures and references from Cyprus to inhabit an unmistakably London industrial building."

After a trip to Cyprus together with Zylia co-founder Barry Karacostas, Real de Azúa decided that the island country's Gerolakkos stone would be one of the features of the restaurant.

"One of the defining materials is Gerolakkos stone, or pouropetra, the warm honey-coloured limestone found throughout Cyprus and used for centuries in everything from civic buildings to humble garden walls," he said.

"The slabs used on the main counter and waiter stations were quarried and shipped directly from Cyprus, arriving only days before completion."

The tactile stone slabs were contrasted with stainless-steel finishes, which were used on the tabletops and chair legs.

"The contrast is important. Rather than allowing one material to dominate the other, the project relies on the tension between them," Real de Azúa said.

As well as the solid materials, Red Deer also drew on Cyprus' tradition of handcrafts when creating the interior, which features local lace and woven pendant lights that add a homely feel.

"Traditional Lefkara lace, hand-crafted and brought from Cyprus, rests upon the stainless surfaces almost as an unexpected domestic intervention," Real de Azúa explained.

"The delicacy of the embroidery softens the precision of the metal, introducing a quiet humanity into what might otherwise feel overtly industrial."

The striking lamps that define the interior were a contemporary reinterpretation of traditional baskets found in Cyprus.

"Their intricate construction and tactile quality have a remarkable ability to make even the simplest interiors feel inhabited and warm," Real de Azúa said.

"Rather than reproducing these forms exactly, together with lighting designers Atelier Lighting, we enlarged and abstracted them, creating generous woven shades that hover above the central dining space," he continued.

"Their scale allows them to establish an architectural presence while retaining the intimacy associated with domestic craft."

For the colour palette of Zylia, Red Deer drew on "the muted greens of ageing timber shutters, their paint gently faded beneath decades of Mediterranean sunlight" in Nicosia, Cyprus.

These hues were then used for the upholstery and cushions in the space, complemented by the ochre colour of the Gerolakkos stone.

"The ambition was never to reproduce Cyprus literally, but to evoke its atmosphere through colour: a palette that feels sun-worn rather than fashionable, quietly confident rather than decorative," Real de Azúa concluded.

Other recent eateries that have opened in London include a popular southeast London bakery and a Vietnamese restaurant in Brixton with a modernist interior.

The photography is courtesy of Zylia.