Belonging to chef and trainer Luke Hines, this indoor-outdoor celebrity kitchen will also be the studio kitchen for his upcoming TV show
As a fan of outdoor living, Luke wanted to create a kitchen that combined the best of both the indoors and outdoors. This kitchen opens to the outside without any interruption to the house, which enables it to be shot for television without interrupting day-to-day family life. The kitchen is in its own room but has large sliding windows that open up to the outdoors where the film crew will be located. As they will be shooting from the outside in, it was important to create a celebrity kitchen with ‘wow’ factor for the viewers.
Luke’s style is a fine line between modern Scandinavian and quirky mid-century modern. The designer and builder have worked closely together to introduce beautiful concrete flooring throughout to achieve an outdoorsy, relaxed feel. Created with a chef in mind, the functionality of this kitchen was the most important thing. The entire kitchen has been designed around designated zones: food, cooking, cleaning and spices. Luke has a lot of spices and the bottles are all different sizes. To accommodate this, inner drawers in two tall cabinets purely for spices have been included.
On one side of the kitchen is an entire black wall where modern V-ZUG appliances live, all on a touch servo-drive system with automatic lights. Perhaps the most impressive feature is the servo-drive flex mechanism on the fully integrated fridge and freezer doors. Again completely automatic, with a touch, the door panel and fridge doors open, and close automatically too. On the opposite side is a 60mm Essastone Ash Concrete benchtop in a matt finish that injects a raw quality into the space. Compared to real concrete, it doesn’t require any maintenance. It extends out to the outdoor area creating a servery bench, which is great for entertaining. Underneath are all-white two-pack joinery with sleek black handle extrusions to achieve the handleless look. A Häfele drawer bin system is also on that side with a servo-drive UNO kit that opens the bin with a slight touch to the cabinet.
Each drawer here is fitted out with strategically placed Ambia-line accessories including plate holders, cutlery and utensil trays and custom boards/tray dividers. V-ZUG ovens are the focal point as they are deliberately placed in the centre of the room. This not only serves a practical purpose but also creates a feature statement, as Luke desired. The ovens reflect the outdoors and the pool area and inject colour into the space. To match Luke’s quirky and bright personality, beautiful fish-scale mosaic tiles feature on all visible walls with custom yellow grout. The tiled walls continue outside, creating the illusion that the kitchen sits between the two spaces.
Designer: Katia Slogrove for Germancraft Cabinets
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Written by Amy Norris
Originally in Luxury Kitchens & Bathrooms Issue 16