In this Kitchen Covet, we explore how designers optimise function and space by integrating dining tables into the kitchen.
While planning a house, the dining area will always be placed in close proximity to the kitchen – whatever the scale of the home. Some designers, however, go one step further and marry the two spaces together. These seven examples of integrated kitchen-dining spaces demonstrate how such an approach can improve functionality, increase flow and enhance social interaction.
Photography by Thomas De Bruyne
Parc Monceau
This Parisian apartment was built in the early 1800s and consisted of a series of boxy, formal rooms which did little to maximise the floor space. When Belgian interior designer Nathalie Deboel was tasked with renovating the apartment, she devised several ways to open up the spaces and improve their functionality. One included designing a kitchen island that works as a benchtop on one side and a banquette dining seat on the other, effectively connecting the two spaces together.
Leinster Square Townhouse
The kitchen in the heart of this renovated 1850s townhouse in Notting Hill, designed by London-based design studio Banda, has a marble-clad cantilevered island that functions as a benchtop on one end, with an in-built sink, and a relaxed dining space on the other. “There are different places to sit with differing heights to suit the mood or time of day,” Banda creative director and CEO Edo Mapelli Mozzi explains. “The lower part of the marble kitchen island is set up as a breakfast table, surrounded by wooden vintage dining chairs,” he adds.
Photography by Ben Anders
Photography by Mitthieu Salvaing
Isabelle Stanislas’ Home
In the most recent issue of est Magazine, Kitchen Confidential, we stepped inside French interior designer Isabelle Stanislas’ Parisian home. Her dining table that she designed is tucked onto the end of her kitchen island, with a top made of exotic wood to complement the Italian travertine of the island, and arched metal legs to symbolise Paris’ arcades and bridges.
Barwon Heads
Adam Kane Architects gave this weatherboard cottage in Barwon Heads, Victoria, a new lease on life through a deep inky palette and barn-style extension. The home’s monolithic kitchen-dining bench in silver travertine encourages guests to gather for conversation when entertaining, evoking a contemporary Belgian design sensibility.
Photography by Timothy Kaye
Photography by Thomas De Bruyne
Project M
Belgian interior designer Frederic Kielemoes says his Project M exists as a series of balancing juxtapositions. “I did this mostly by opposing raw materials, often with a history, with refined contemporary materials,” he says. The most prominent example of this has to be the long dining table made of reclaimed timber, which connects to or rather, intersects, a kitchen made of deep-green marble.
Fortuny
One of our esteemed 10 designers for 2023 was French interior designer Fleur Delesalle, who’s Fortuny project in Paris typifies her bold and playful approach to interiors. The home features an integrated kitchen-dining space in which the dining table lies perpendicular to a small island, with a small gap in between. Both pieces feature rounded corners, evoking a gentle, airy atmosphere.
Photography by Vincent Leroux
Photography by Chris Warnes
Heliotropian
In reimagining a 1980s house with sweeping views of the Sydney Harbour, Studio Prineas sought to reconfigure its layout to enhance the lives of the owners. The elongated kitchen is defined by a sleek island made of stone and limed oak, which dips down into a spacious dining table. The white steel framing that surrounds both the island and dining table establishes a clear connection between the two spaces.
