Italian kitchens header.jpg

ITALIAN KITCHENS FOR SOUTH EAST LONDON

 

Italian kitchen design, and the partner behind it

Italy has been making furniture for export longer than most countries have been making it at all.

It’s a manufacturing culture as much as a design one, and the two have been bound together in the Italian psyche since the 1950s.

We build with Zecchinon Cucine, our choice for its strong architectural style and excellent quality.

About Zecchinon Cucine

Inside an Italian Kitchen…

Take a closer look at a recent project.

An Italian kitchen with ochre wall units along the right-hand wall, lit from underneath onto a veined marble splashback that runs down to the worktop. A full-height dark timber run on the left houses the ovens, timber base cabinetry sits under the marble worktop with a continuous recessed channel along it, and an island in the same ochre carries a flush black hob with a downdraft slot.

Italian kitchens

The ochre cabinetry

A single saturated ochre, carried the length of the wall and picked up again on the island. Post-war Italy put strong colour into serious manufactured objects, Kartell’s moulded plastics and Olivetti’s machines among them, at a point when most of Europe kept its factory goods safely neutral.

See our projects

Italian kitchens

The full-height run

Floor to ceiling in one timber, with the ovens set into the same run as the storage. Zecchinon opened its current factory in 1966 and took the name cucine componibili with it, modular kitchens built from a fixed set of carcass sizes. That grid is why a wall this long resolves into whole units, and why the appliance housing reads as another module in the run instead of a hole cut for a machine.

Storage and accessories

Italian kitchens

Stone and light

The same stone surface runs from the worktop to the underside of the wall units, and the light sits in the units themselves, so there’s nothing on show but the lit slab. In 1952 Ernesto Rogers described the Milanese habit as designing from the spoon to the city, meaning the smallest fitting is worth the same attention as the building. A lighting channel that belongs to the cabinetry is what that comes to in a kitchen.

Kitchen worktops

Italian kitchens

The line under the worktop

A continuous dark recess runs under the worktop for the full length of the base units, and it’s the only opening detail on this side of the room. The channel is the Italian gola, set into the carcass behind the door so nothing is added to the front. Because it runs unbroken, your hand finds it anywhere along the wall, and the eye reads one horizontal line from the corner to the end.

Handleless kitchens

Italian kitchens

The island and its hob

The hob is set flush into the stone with the extraction drawn down through the slot in the middle of it, so the ceiling stays clear and nothing hangs over the island. The drawer fronts open on an angled grip cut into the top edge, a different solution from the recess on the far wall and the better one on a bank of deep drawers. You prep here, you cook here, and this is where everyone stands while you do both, so the clear surface either side of the hob matters more than the island’s total length.

Kitchen appliances
Explore our Design Process
Explore our Design Process

What Italian design did to the modern kitchen

Post-war Italy rebuilt itself around industrial design: mass production stripped objects of ornamentation but with Italian style, the focus on function, durability and affordability was actually the catalyst for the birth of a new iconic Italian style! That thinking went into lighting, cars and typewriters, and it went into kitchens… and that’s why we love Italian kitchens so much! It’s where form and function come together to produce stunning design, right here in London.

How we design

What being made in italy Actually means

The four strengths of our Italian kitchens…

Italian kitchens

Zecchinon Cucine

We are Zecchinon Cucine specialists, so every kitchen we design is drawn against a system we already know: what it will do, how its finishes wear, and which of them we’d recommend for a house with three children and a dog! We’re proud of our relationship with Zecchinon and of our specialist knowledge.

About Zecchinon Cucine

Italian kitchens

Finishes and materials

Fenix, hand-applied lacquer, real wood veneer, glass and stone… The right finish determines how a kitchen will look in ten years, which is why it’s worth seeing the samples in daylight and handling a few doors before you choose one.

Book an appointment

Italian kitchens

Hinges, runners and drawer boxes

Hinges, runners, soft-close, the depth of a drawer box and how it comes to rest when it’s fully loaded. A drawer that still runs true on its two hundredth open was built to, and it’s worth opening a few at the studio to feel the difference.

Storage and accessories

Italian kitchens

Made in Italy, fitted here

The cabinetry is manufactured to order in Italy and arrives finished, ready for installation. In houses where floors slope, walls bow and rooms are rarely square, our precision installation team ensures a perfect fit every time.

Kitchen installation

Our Italian kitchen design projects in South East London

Every kitchen on our projects page was designed for a real home in South East London. From Victorian terraces, to back extensions and new builds, we bring modern Italian design to your home.

view our latest projects

What Customers Say

Come and open a few doors

Some things only make sense in person: the weight of a door on its hinge, the depth of a lacquer in real light, how quietly a loaded drawer closes. It’s all running at our Brockley kitchen studio, and Andrew will talk you through a design to suit your kitchen.

Arrange a design consultation
Download our brochure