Kitchens to covet
Alastair Hendy’s double-height warehouse kitchen combines functional repurposed catering equipment with outsized, durable utilities to create his ideal workspace
Welcome to Alastair Hendy’s double-height warehouse kitchen
I’m a food and travel writer, photographer, and retailer living in Shoreditch, London, with my partner, John Clinch, in a split-level warehouse apartment that we converted from scratch in 1996.
Our L-shaped kitchen, on the lower level, covers 25 square metres and has an adjoining scullery and pantry, making it the core of the home. Stairs connect it to the living area above, where we removed a section of floor to bring in more light and a sense of theatre. It’s divided from the rest of the lower ground floor by glass bricks and a vast glazed door.
The look is industrial, steel and concrete, almost brutalist, and very much unfitted. The equipment is all commercial, restaurantgrade – much of it bought from an auction in Battersea – and chosen for its no-nonsense good looks and efficiency.
Converting a warehouse, where there are no internal walls, offers you the luxury of creating exactly the space you want. I sited the kitchen where I could also create a pantry and scullery, underneath a concrete fire escape staircase.
It just fitted and made best use of the space.
Industrial kitchen equipment was chosen for its efficiency, with open storage on trolleys for fluidity and their ergonomic possibilities. I’ve never been one for cupboards – best have one big walk-in pantry and have everything in sight for easy grabbing. Easy to put back, too; it’s my kitchen filing system. Being a food photographer, shop owner, designer and hoarder of all things beautiful, I have lots of props stashed away.
Being a full-on cook, too, I need an efficient workspace and everything here is not only my aesthetic, but also fit for purpose. The materials can take a bit of a hammering and improve beautifully with age. The pantry has a wonderful pair of heavy-duty steel doors, original to the building, keeping things very cool when the doors are shut. I used round mosaic porcelain tiles on the floor in there.
The central worktable came from a school (for £100), which I customised with stainless steel to cover its crumbling melamine top, and I painted the wood with off-white eggshell. Three wall-mounted Anglepoise lamps are ex-hospital, and cost £2.50 each, in the days when no one valued industrial. An extra-large lamp is fitted above the butler sink: it’s ex-dental and dates to the 1930s – a gift at £20.
I’ve upcycled and re-purposed all my life, and getting a bargain is in my DNA. I trawl boot fairs, auctions and international antique fairs. The taps on the concrete surface sink are ex-hospital, £10, and below are steel drawers – old steaming trays from an oven (£10 each). They’re mounted on runners set on a steel frame made to fit them and support the concrete. I love the old canteen trolley in the scullery (£95) – it holds so much. The new cooker and fridge are where the serious cash was spent: heavy-duty Zanussi gear.
My advice for anyone designing a kitchen: think outsized. Thinking big makes life easy. Just have fewer things and, what you do have, make them ample; a big sink, a big drainer, a big cooker, a big fridge. Have one big storage area for a pantry, with narrow shelves so you can see and get to everything. You don’t need a big kitchen. If your kitchen is small, your prep table can double as your dining table. Don’t spend a fortune, either. The best-looking kitchens are often created on lower budgets. Use materials that improve with age – things get scratched, scarred and knocked. There’s nothing more ridiculous than a worktop too precious to use.
steel, concrete, ply, glass and ironstone ceramics set the narrative
i’m inspired b terence co ran – my first jo w s w th hab tat as a display manager in the early 1980s