Creating your Dream Kitchen

Gaggenau's Top Tips for Creating your Functional Dream Kitchen

Today's kitchens have to be supreme multitaskers. It is the kitchen where the energy resonates, where the family gathers to cook, eat and share their day and where you can entertain and socialize with friends. With all this activity happening in one room it is important that the kitchen is functional and to ensure that the layout works with how it is used.

As our palates and culinary skills have become all the more sophisticated our hunger for innovative appliances has expanded and modern kitchen design serves to reflect this, enabling creative and enjoyable spaces through sleek aesthetics and innovative appliances that integrate with personal cooking styles and preference.

Inspired by the requirements of leading professionals and top chefs, Gaggenau, the luxury professional-grade kitchen appliance manufacturer, says appliances should meet your own personal needs in order to create excellent food, so it's important to take the time to understand how you cook, and what types of appliances offer features that will most benefit you and your lifestyle.

Colours, cabinetry and splashbacks all contribute to the personal style of the kitchen but it's important to take into consideration the large appliances that will feature, such as ovens, dishwashers and fridges. These appliances are usually integrated within the cabinetry, so it's crucial that the kitchen's design and layout incorporate the style and size of each appliance.

For Tony Tan, one of Australia's most respected chefs and culinary teachers, precision and organization is his philosophy behind functional kitchen design. He shares the main considerations when making the exciting journey towards designing a dream kitchen.

"Once the layout is under control, the design process naturally flows," says Tony. "Each vital consideration should work in a harmonious synergy, as they are all interconnected. If a kitchen is not laid out effectively, you will end up wasting time moving between spaces to get what you need. It becomes less enjoyable, and can certainly affect your cooking results as well."

Here are Tony's top tips to crafting the perfectly functional kitchen:

1. Layout
Alongside quality appliances, layout is a key consideration in modern kitchen design as both can have a big impact on productivity. Layout will determine how you use the space, and exactly how functional your kitchen will be. Designing an effective kitchen 'work' triangle configuration will give you easy access to work surfaces, appliances and the sink, which means your all-important cooking efficiency is maximised.

2. Benchtop
The second thing to consider when designing your kitchen is your benchtop. How your benchtop is going to be configured in terms of cooktop, sink and working space is connected to the layout stage. Keeping these elements together helps create an efficient and harmonious environment, saving time when preparing food and cooking. Everything within your kitchen will develop from these initial plans.

3. Storage
The next most important consideration when designing a functional kitchen is the storage. A good kitchen will have plenty of storage, with easy access to everything that you need while cooking. As long as you utilize the space to maximise your storage, you will ensure that you have room for everything – from your ingredients, to plates and utensils, cookware and anything else you need on hand when cooking amazing food.

4. Finishes
The finishes you select for your kitchen need to find the perfect balance between aesthetics and functionality. In a home kitchen there is a need for clean, functional benchtops and sufficient work surfaces that are hygienic.

5. Appliances
If you're someone who is serious about your cooking, you will need to look for appliances that are the highest quality and are time efficient. The reason top-of-the-line appliances are so highly coveted is that you can rely on them to last and to work effectively for many years to come. It's important to consider the effect of an appliance and how it relates to the room, ensuring both its technology and aesthetics are as advanced as possible.

When needing things done fast, it is ideal to have appliances that offer a combination of different cooking methods such as Gaggenau's multifunctional Combi-Steam Oven. "My Gaggenau combi-steam oven allows me to roast and to steam, achieving amazing results in a single appliance," says Tony. Vastly expanding cooking options by combining humidity (steam) with convection (dry heat circulated by fans), this innovative appliance cooks more evenly while retaining the essential nutrients of your ingredients.

Once found only in professional kitchens, the combi-steam oven was introduced by Gaggenau into the private home 20 years ago. Its latest 400 series combi-steam oven allows the private chef to master steam, free from constraints to enhance the cooking experience. The enlarged cavity, cleverly lit by indirect lighting, conceals a full surface grill behind glass for ease of cleaning and aesthetics.

"Perfect your kitchen design and you can create a space that is smart with excellent flow where every meal is a pleasure to cook," says Tony.

For further information visit Gaggenau