Something like this except the soffit would come out further away from the wall past the cabinets. Also I would add crown molding to the soffit and inside the ceiling would be tray not straight.

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You mean a traditional soffit just extended around the whole perimeter of the room. That's all a tray ceiling is. It only looks good in a more traditional home. And uplighting only looks good in a contemporary home. It just looks like a design miss in a traditional home.

You need to develop an overall design mission statement for the home and weigh each choice against that. Otherwise you're going to end up with something that lacks any continuity and each part and piece will be in discord with itself as a whole.

My design is more contemporary

Hollysprings , what would you suggest for filling in that 18" space between the cabinets and ceiling, except more cabinets?

Drop the entire ceiling if you don't want a gap between the cabinets and ceiling. This should have been thought out in the design phase. Tall ceilings are particularly useless in kitchens, so you have to have a plan in place to handle a transition, or plan for the cabinets to go to the ceiling. Or have a gap.

Tall ceilings are particularly useless in kitchens,

And pretty much anywhere else not regularly occupied by NBA forwards and centers.

But nevertheless they are regular features in high design kitchens . For instance, see the current edition of Architectural Digest, p.204, the previous edition at 131 etc, etc.

Practically, treying the ceiling the way the OP is suggesting could create a deep horizontal canyon that might look better filled, not necessarily by expensive cabinets, but simple panels in the same style as the cabinetry.

But, then, I'm not a designer.

Here's how a kitchen designer handled a nine-foot ceiling in a house I built a few years ago.

I think it looks rather nice. It's more interesting than having the same flat ceiling everywhere.

similar concept

Is the kitchen a wholly enclosed room so that the ceiling treatment doesn't impact any additional room in an open space concept?

It's not completely open, but there will be an 8 ft trimmed soffit between rooms giving it separation.