Inside some of the world’s most beautiful kitchens

Anna Barnett

Since living in Hackney, London, chef and writer Anna Barnett has lived in a warehouse, an old Victorian pub, and now a former school, which means fabulous 4-metre (13-foot) high ceilings and masses of space. The interior is flooded with light thanks to the original Crittall windows that open on to the kitchen, and the mood is calm with a touch of retro thrown in – think Art Deco-style pendant lights and 1970s-inspired swivel tub chairs in luxe golden-green velvet.

Taking cues from Italian interiors, the décor is a lesson in simplicity, warmth and texture. Its wax-polished plaster walls echo traditional finishes from Venice, while the pink-toned elm-veneered island nods to Italian craftsmanship.

Cliodhna Prendergast

Foraging the savage, beautiful surrounds of the Connemara National Park in the West of Ireland, Cliodhna Prendergast is an avid gatherer of foodstuffs from this wild pantry, which she cooks either in the open or at her contemporary lakeside home.

Cliodhna lives in an architect-built bungalow with her husband and three children and is happiest roaming the countryside for ingredients such as spruce tips, mushrooms and seaweed. Cliodhna’s open-plan kitchen and dining area is blessed with lots of natural light streaming in through the windows, which complements her wood and limestone scheme and clean-lined aesthetic.

Camille Becerra

Part artist’s studio, part kitchen, the home of chef and restaurant creative director Camille Becarra in New York’s Lower East Side is a place where creativity and food go together like hand and glove.

With tall ceilings and fabulous light, Camille’s apartment in downtown Manhattan is in a converted high school from the turn of the century. Camille describes her home as an office and artist’s studio: her kitchen and living room are a workspace where she develops recipes and takes photographs for Domino magazine. It’s here that, like a Mary Poppins of the food world, she gets to play around.

Patricia Wells

Updating the country kitchen aesthetic with a contemporary yellow-and-white scheme, this Parisian kitchen is keeping things fresh. From the canary-yellow Lacanche range to the ceramics on the wall, the decoration of Patricia Wells’ apartment is all about showing off what you love.

Patricia’s gift for kitchen planning (this is her tenth redecoration to date), devotion to cooking and genuine love of all things French make her 1830s ground-floor apartment as bold as it is beautiful. She teamed up with renowned Parisian property developers A+B Kasha, who specialize in the renovation of historic homes in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighbourhood, to create this dream kitchen and garden in the Left Bank’s rue du Bac.

Mette Helbæk

Foraging in the Swedish forest and picking salad from her kitchen garden, Danish chef and stylist Mette Helbæk and husband Flemming Hansen have a lifestyle straight out of a Hans Christian Andersen story. Beginning their journey with Stedsans ØsterGRO, a highly successful rooftop restaurant in Copenhagen, they moved their project to the forest in pursuit of a hyper-local and off-grid dream.

No longer living under canvas in the woods as they did while setting up, they now base their home 20 kilometres (12 miles) away in a quiet little town called Unnaryd. With a design that’s stood the test of time, their kitchen has masses of storage, an old-fashioned pantry and shelves that go all the way up to the ceiling, for which Mette uses a ladder to reach the top spots. The chequerboard lino, white-painted floorboards, large terracotta-potted plants and woven raffia lampshades create a relaxed feel and are distinctly Scandinavian in style.

Extracted from Wild Kitchen by Claire Bingham