At this point, the image is a cliché: The living room at a party is fastidiously dressed with flowers and food, yet the guests can’t tear themselves away from the kitchen or the frantic host stirring over the stove, who tries to gracefully shoo them to the other room.
But maybe we’ve been thinking about this conundrum all wrong, says AD100 designer Nicole Hollis. “You can’t keep everyone out of the kitchen,” she acknowledged in a recent AD PRO virtual panel hosted by Gaggenau titled “Compliments to the Chef: Kitchen Design for Ultimate Entertaining.” The solution, she suggests, is in the layout: A showcase kitchen in the front, and a working one in the back.
Hollis’s idea was one trend among several discussed during the panel, which also included the architect Chet Callahan and interior designers César Giraldo and Laurie Haefele. Sam Cochran, AD’s global features director, moderated the conversation that covered topics ranging from the appliances designers are specifying now to the hotly debated decline of the open-plan layout (a phenomenon that Haefele described as “overstated”).
Callahan noted that with the easing of Covid restrictions, many of his clients are excited to entertain friends at home for the first time in ages. “They just want to have the party of the year,” he said. But not everyone approaches hosting the same way. “There are different types of entertainers,” he explained. “There’s the butterfly who wants to mingle among the guests and always keep their hands busy. And then there’s the performer who wants to be center stage.” A kitchen can be the ideal setting for both, and it can be designed in a way that accommodates guests too.
“Everybody wants to be where the action is,” Callahan said. One suggestion he makes is reserving the center island for a more social activity, like prepping, rather than the stove. Haefele pointed out the popularity of culinary shows to make the point that “everybody’s so interested in learning tips from other people prepping and cooking.”