‘For a chef, the kitchen is the most important part of the house, a personal space where everything must be perfect, appropriate and precise,’ explain the architects at Studio A-Side. The Italian firm is well aware of this, especially after working on the renovation of this Milan house occupied by a chef.

‘It had to be visible so that guests could share in the owner’s creativity, but it also had to be easy to tidy up. So we came up with the idea of a kind of “false bottom” behind the back of the kitchen, to easily store all the tools and small appliances,’ say the architects.

Thus, an ingenious and beautiful solution based on tobacco-stained oak combines two aspects that are sometimes difficult to reconcile: respect for the open-plan kitchen concept and the need to keep the room visually clean. To fully integrate with the dining room, the worktop was made from Dekton Kelya, a sober and refined tone inspired by dark marble with light veins.

‘We were looking for a material that could convey sophistication and aesthetics, but also offer our customer, a chef, top performance in terms of resistance to heat, knocks and any disinfectant chemicals,’ recall the professionals.

For his part, the homeowner says: ‘Perhaps for professional reasons, I wanted a very practical worktop (I am used to working on steel worktops). I wanted to be able to cut directly on it without using a cutting board, to be able to leave hot pans on it without having to pay too much attention to them and to be sure that it would be easy to clean. This narrowed down my choice from the start, and when the architects suggested Dekton, I immediately fell in love with it.’

In fact, Cosentino’s ultra-compact surface, produced in a sustainable way thanks to a sophisticated blend of more than 20 minerals extracted from nature, is resistant to stains, scratches, knocks, fire, etc., so a damp cloth is all it takes to make it look as good as new.

‘The architects did a beautiful and precise job of researching and analysing Cosentino’s production. Among the finishes they showed me, I immediately liked Kelya because it perfectly matched the colours chosen for the kitchen and living room furniture,’ recalls the chef.

‘The decision to create a single, open space with no partitions required the use of surfaces that were not only practical, but also elegant and easy to match with the furniture in the large living room. Kelya’s anthracite background and light veins blend perfectly with the matt anthracite grey lacquer of the furniture, the slate paint on the walls and the oak wall compartments,’ continue the architects at Studio A-Side.

The choice was also influenced by the possibility of using a seamless and continuous material. ‘We wanted all the worktops in the kitchen to be continuous surfaces, with no joints or juxtapositions. Thanks to the large format of the Cosentino slabs, we were able to create an island with a single slab, taking advantage of the full production size of 320 x 144 cm,’ concludes the studio.