Great Kitchens: Design Ideas from America's Top Chefs (Paperback)

~ (Author), (Author), Wendy A. Jordan (Author) "Once you see Ken Hom's kitchen, you've met the man..." (more)
Key Phrases: cleanup sink, prep sink, trough sink, Mary Sue, San Francisco, Chez Panisse (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If envy is an issue with which you struggle daily, you may want to avoid Great Kitchens, a lavishly illustrated walk-through of 26 fabulous kitchens in the homes of some of America's best chefs. This is a Taunton Press publication--the same people who bring us Fine Woodworking, Fine Homebuilding, and Wooden Boat, among others--so rest assured the production values are high enough to raise the stakes for everyone else in the business.

The one thing all of these kitchens have in common is that they didn't start out this way. There are kitchens put into Victorian houses, 1920s farm houses, swim schools (no kidding: Mary Sue Milliken of Border Grill in Los Angeles, and her architect husband, Josh Schweitzer, bought a small swim school and put home and kitchen where locker rooms and showers could once be found), old bars, upscale apartments, ancient stone houses. These are kitchens, then, that have been thought about by people who work with food, and know what they want at home.

Built-in wood-burning ovens and hearths seem to be a big deal. So, too, are custom wok stoves. Seattle chef Tom Douglas put his enormous prep island on industrial casters. He also put his herbs and spices into cans that attach to bar magnets on what would be wasted wall space. He chose the domestic version of an industrial stove because it is better insulated and doesn't heat up the kitchen. And like several chefs in the book, he swears by his commercial Hobart dishwasher with its 90-second cycle.

Great Kitchens is a multifunction book. You can leave it open on a coffee table as a piece of publishing art. You can use it to launch your daydreams. But most of all, you can use it to learn from the mistakes and successes of others, and gain insight from a lot of very practical information.

Most over-the-top built-in appliance? Terrance Brennan's bread-warming drawer. But in this book, it makes perfect sense. --Schuyler Ingle --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Foodies will enjoy a voyeuristic thrill seeing, in this cookbook/home design hybrid, the kitchen of Cecilia Chang (founder of San Francisco's Mandarin restaurant as well as others) with its built-in wok, or the cooking oasis of Lidia Bastianich (Felidia, Becco and Frico Bar in New York City) with its etched-glass d?cor. The authors (food -aficionado Whitaker; architect Mahoney; and Jordan, editor of Professional Remodeler magazine) highlight 26 kitchens and include discussions with their owners on what they love about their homes and about cooking in general. The chef profiles tend to be predictable (it's no surprise, for example, that Alice Waters has a commitment to organic farming); the most interesting parts focus on what the chefs did to their kitchens and how they did itAand often what they wish they had done differently. When Anne Quatrano and Clifford Harrison (of Bacchanalia in Atlanta) moved from a tiny apartment in Manhattan to Atlanta, Ga., they reveled in the additional space and designed a 24-by-24-foot kitchen with a 22-foot ceiling, but they still regret not adding a second sink. On the other hand, the chefs' recipes, such as Crispy Vegetable Stir-Fry from Ken Hom and Smoked Chile Salsa from Mary Sue Milliken, feel tacked onAtheir contributors certainly expended more energy on their envy-inducing kitchens than on these recipes. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Taunton (October 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1561585343
• ISBN-13: 978-1561585342
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 9.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #318,361 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely the best book ever for planning a kitchen., September 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Great Kitchens: At Home with America's Top Chefs (Hardcover)

I bought this book thinking that it would be just a sort of celebrity tour of the home kitchens of some well-known chefs, a great idea in itself, but more style than substance. Boy was I wrong. There's more meat to this book than in Julia Child's beef bourguignon. My wife and I have been planning to completely overhaul our kitchen for years now, and we've gone through dozens of kitchen books without finding much really useful design information. Well here it is. On our first sitting with Great Kitchens, we identified at least five great kitchen design ideas we will definitely incorporate into our new kitchen. I'm sure there are more, but I just can't seem to get the book out of my wife's hands.

49 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Full of brilliant ideas that are actually useful!, October 13, 1999

By	Jeffrey Malloy (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Great Kitchens: At Home with America's Top Chefs (Hardcover)

Finally a book with some "meat and potatoes" content that is enhanced with beautiful photography and actual floorplans! Not just a book of pretty pictures that have little to do with actual cooking. These kitchens combine the best of design, performance and above all, personality. The written background is also fascinating and really gets into these chef's heads about their approaches to their own, personal kitchens. When's Book TWO?!!!

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best kitchen design book..., February 4, 2000

By	Karen L. Vandusen "cloudpeak" (Woodinville, Washington United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Great Kitchens: At Home with America's Top Chefs (Hardcover)

Because we're planning to remodel the kitchen, I've looked at many kitchen design books. This is the best one! It has great ideas. It has floor plans. The featured chefs even talk about the mistakes they think they made when they designed their kitchens. These are grand kitchens. Even if you want to do something more modest, you'll appreciate the ideas in this book. We've all cooked in kitchens that are just plain badly designed. These kitchens were planned by people who really cook. If you don't have a kitchen remodel in your future, put this book on your coffee table. Everyone will enjoy looking at it.