Prepare for the death of the middleclass kitchen

Former staples of well-specced homes are being jettisoned in favour of cheaper and more practical items, reports Lucy Denyer

They were a soothing sign that here was a kitchen you could trust: one in which comforting casseroles would simmer in winter, steaks would be griddled in summer and on Sunday mornings, as sure as the cock would crow and the church bells would ring, the frying pan would be deployed for bacon and eggs.

Sure, they weighed a ton and took up loads of cupboard space, but for years they were a jaunty fixture on wedding lists across the land, the colour denoting what middle- class tribe you belonged to: orange for traditionalists, blue for those who fancied themselves a little more modern, cream or duck egg for those who liked their cookware to match their kitchen aesthetic.

But, alas, Le Creuset, that bastion of middle- class kitchens, is in trouble: sales of the French homeware brand’s goods fell nearly 20pc last year, with profits dropping more than £1.5m.

Nick Ryder, Le Creuset’s managing director, puts it down to the cost of living crisis. It is true that £525 – the cost of the new green, 24cm, Christmas edition casserole, with star-shaped lid – is an awful lot to spend on a pan. But there are surely other factors at play, too – not least the aforementioned weight, as well as the fact that cooking scrambled eggs in them is a nightmare as they are not non-stick (the company also offers a lifetime guarantee on its products, which is great for customers but not so great for new sales).

These days, it is all about the multifunctional Always Pan by Our Place – which also comes in a range of colours, starts at a comparatively mere £85 and can be used for boiling, steaming, braising, straining or frying. But Le Creuset is not the only middle- class kitchen

‘We’ve managed to export the English middle-class kitchen to America’

staple to be falling out of favour. All around the country, the cornerstones of what used to constitute a decent kitchen are dropping like flies.

Sales of new Agas (from £7,000 for a dinky apartment- sized model) slumped £10m to £140m last year. In June, Cath Kidston, purveyor of the spotted and strawberry-patterned oilcloths that once adorned every scrubbed pine middle- class kitchen table, slashed prices by 70pc ahead of the final closure of its remaining stores. And in January, veg box supplier Riverford Organic announced a fall in pre-tax profit to £5.2m.Nothing seems immune, even the kitchen walls: Farrow & Ball sales slumped by about 3pc in 2022 as people moved on from slathering Elephant’s Breath and Mouse’s Back all over the place.

So what on earth is going on? Is the middle- class kitchen dead? And, if so, where does that leave our wedding lists?

Fiona McKenzie Johnston, House & Garden magazine’s agony aunt, points out that when it comes to style, meanwhile, the English aesthetic – what one might think of as “Downton Abbey style” – is alive and well. Sales at traditional kitchenmaker deVol, for example ( think utilitarian style with brass detailing and butler’s sinks, with prices starting at £12,000), have been increasing, exceeding £1.2m in March. The company, which is also recording customers Stateside going mad for its shaker-style cupboards in muted colours, released its first book in May. As McKenzie Johnston puts it, “We’ve managed to export the English middle- class kitchen to America.” So that’s where it’s gone.

Wooden worktops have been replaced by marble, countertops cleared of kettles with the addition of a boiling-water tap (Manchester-based Quooker was one of the fastest-growing firms in the North West in June, recording a turnover of £73m last year, up from £42m in 2020), and that old freestanding fridge freezer tucked into the corner will have been replaced with either under- counter fridge drawers or a giant integrated American-style fridge freezer. We are not the only ones exporting things over the Atlantic, it seems. And the latest trend is for two dishwashers – one kitchen company in West Yorkshire has seen requests for two up by 35pc.

When it comes to cooking, meanwhile, “the reason that Agas died is because there are some really smart other options on the market”, says Nicole

Salvesen, one half of upmarket interior design firm Salvesen GrahamSalvesen. She says her clients still want a rangestyle cooker, but will opt instead for something like the French brand Lacanche, which still looks traditional, but cooks more technically than an Aga and is generally cheaper to run.

But I’m not so sure this is really the end of Le Creuset. At the time of writing, a set of mini ceramic casserole dishes shaped like vegetables and on sale for £575 has 40 watchers on eBay, while you can also buy a limited edition Han Solo Le Creuset roaster for the whopping sum of £2,160.

As for me – I wouldn’t part from my old-school orange Le Creuset casserole for love nor money.