Top Gear

For avid cooks who take great pleasure in whipping up sumptuous feasts, a stylish kitchen with a high level of functionality is a must

- Michele Koh Morollo

“A kitchen is basically a workshop and crafting a dish is complex work for the serious cook,” says Ed Ng, co-founder of Hong Kong-based studio AB Concept. He explains that the home chef ’s kitchen should be designed to help its owner conserve time and energy, so they can focus on their craft. “So it’s important to make sure that everything that’s needed—pans, knives, plates, ingredients—can be conveniently accessed,” he adds.

The studio’s gourmand clients generally own state-of-the-art appliances and tools, so the next step for the AB Concept team would be to create a kitchen design that best accommodates such equipment. “Passionate cooks also like collecting beautiful dinnerware sets, which they often use when they entertain,” says the designer. “Because of this, we create display areas so our clients can showcase their collections.” For large kitchens, he suggests double-loaded layouts with two parallel workstations, one placed against the wall and the other an elongated, fully equipped island counter. “Such a layout gives cooks plenty of room to place their ingredients and tools, and they can move from one workstation to another with ease,” explains Ng.