Kitchen Design Styles: Gourmet

High-end kitchen design with restaurant-quality features are perfect for the person who takes cooking seriously. Professional appliances, durable surfaces and specialty storage make a kitchen fit for a foodie, while sturdy and easy-to-clean surfaces and an organized layout make for a more efficient gourmand experience.

Before you begin your kitchen renovation, you should take into consideration how you want to use your kitchen, whether that means regularly preparing four course meals or casual entertaining. Once you decide the goal for your remodel, you can then make decisions about the floor plan, cabinetry, appliances, and custom features. The following list details the unique needs of a gourmet kitchen to help you begin to itemize your own kitchen remodel.

Easy-clean, sturdy surfaces. Quartz surfaces are man-made, do not require sealing, are less porous than natural stones like granite, and have better stain-resistance and durability.

Task lighting. Under-cabinet lighting and pendants that focus light on specific workspaces illuminates kitchen zones where prepping, cooking and cleanup take place, so that no detail goes unnoticed.

Professional-grade range. No gourmet kitchen is complete without professional level equipment. While cooks generally prefer gas ranges, induction cooktops are also regularly recommended for gourmet kitchen remodels, as they heat up faster and deliver heat directly from the source to the pan. Also, modular thick-burner stoves with pop-in griddles and other “accessories” are also a desirable alternative for the serious recreational chef.

Double oven. Two ovens are always better than one for the gourmet. If you have the space for a double oven set up, one of those ovens should be convection, so food cooks uniformly and efficiently.

Warming drawer. When cooking a meal, a warming drawer saves the day when the timing doesn’t match up perfectly for each course. This heating feature will protect the moisture of food and allow the cook to keep food warm until serving. A warming drawer holds food for extended periods of time, avoiding the need to reheat in a microwave (which breaks down the molecular structure of food).

Microwave drawer. A more gourmet alternative to shelf-mounted microwaves or freestanding units that take up counter space, a microwave drawer is concealed neatly among base cabinets, which allows for more storage space for kitchen accessories.

Kitchen Island. Adding a kitchen island to your layout will provide an extra prep surface for those with larger kitchen spaces. Islands also create more storage space in kitchens, which is perfect for the epicurean to store a variety of tools and cookware.