Designed for a young family who entertain as naturally as they breathe, this Mayfair kitchen dissolves the boundary between cooking and gathering, placing a sweeping Calacatta marble island at the heart of daily life.
Designing for Real Life
The Harringtons needed a kitchen that could handle a Tuesday night pasta with three children underfoot and a Saturday supper club for twelve with equal grace. We responded with a plan organised around a single monolithic island — three metres of honed Calacatta marble cantilevered at one end to create an informal breakfast bar, solid at the other to house a prep sink and integrated dishwasher.
Perimeter cabinetry in pale quarter-sawn oak keeps the room light and open. Handles are brushed bronze bars, slim enough to disappear when the kitchen is at rest, substantial enough to grip with wet hands. Every appliance — the column refrigerator, the steam oven, the induction hob — sits behind panel-ready doors, preserving the elevation’s calm symmetry.
Light and Materiality
Three spun-brass pendant lights descend at staggered heights above the island, their warm metallic glow reflected in the stone’s polished surface at night. During the day, the original Georgian sash windows — restored and fitted with slimline double glazing — flood the room with diffused north light that keeps the marble’s grey veining alive and shifting throughout the hours.
Our kitchen used to be the room we passed through. Now it is the room everyone stays in.
James Harrington
The transition from kitchen to dining happens without a threshold change — the same wide-plank oak flooring runs unbroken from the hob to the dining table, where bouclé-upholstered chairs in a warm sand tone echo the softness of the cabinetry. The result is a space that feels singular rather than zoned, a kitchen that belongs to the whole family.