Luxury kitchen ideas

A luxury kitchen is the sum of small decisions made well. Twelve of them, from the bespoke kitchens we have designed and built this year.

Free the island from the cabinet line. A different colour, a different worktop, sometimes a different material altogether. It reads as furniture instead of a continuation of the wall.

Floor-to-ceiling, drawer-fronted, with integrated lighting that fires when the door opens. The larder absorbs the pantry, the small appliances, and the spare crockery, and removes them from the worktop.

Aged brass cup handles or knurled brass knobs. Reads warm, develops a patina, and pairs equally well with a hand-painted in-frame and a slab-fronted slate kitchen.

Daylight from above is the single most luxurious thing a kitchen can have. A roof lantern over the island doubles the ambient light and makes every material under it look better.

A reeded glass insert in a tall larder door, or a fluted glass display cabinet. The texture catches the light differently from every angle.

A coffee machine, a wine fridge, a glass cabinet, set into a dedicated zone away from the cooking. The cook stays at the worktop; the drinks make themselves.

Farrow & Ball Studio Green. Little Greene Pleat. The deep colour reads architectural, not bright. Hand-painted, not sprayed, so the surface has microvariation.

A continuous stone splashback that runs from the worktop to the underside of the wall unit, in the same material as the worktop. No grout, no joints. The cleanest possible run.

A solid oak end to the island, dropped down to seat height, oiled not lacquered. Warm, tactile, and a counterpoint to the cooler stone of the main worktop.

The fridge and freezer hidden behind cabinet panels in a tall run. The oven and microwave columned together in the same way. The visible kitchen reads as cabinetry; the appliances disappear.

In an island, a downdraft or pop-up extractor that disappears when not in use, replacing the visible canopy. The island reads cleanly when the kitchen is off.

A warm LED strip set into the kerb under the cabinets, dimmable, low at night. Lit at 50%, the kitchen reads like a bar at 11pm. Lit at 100%, it doubles as a nightlight on the way for water.

The luxury is rarely in any one of these ideas. It is in choosing which two or three the kitchen needs and resisting the urge to add the rest.