A few years ago, cook, food writer and podcaster Anna Barnett was doing pop-up restaurants and supper clubs in east London. There were endless courses and the venue logistics were dizzying. She recalls nights of “carnage, complete carnage!”
House-hunting in 2018, she knew that wherever she lay her spatula, her new home had to double as a photogenic, practical work space. Her two-bedroom flat in a converted Victorian Grade II listed school in Hackney does just that. It’s a double height, 940sq ft open-plan space with a fluid, ergonomic design.
“The kitchen was my starting point,” she says of the recent renovation of the home she shares with husband Thom Archer, who works in media recruitment. “Everything was literally built around it. Planning a kitchen is like choosing your wedding dress – how do you even know what your ideal kitchen is? I was like a wild bride in a crazy dress” – a dress that wasn’t fit for purpose.
The solution was a dazzling but practical kitchen that sits in an L-shaped space with the dining area beneath a mezzanine. This is home to the couple’s gallery bedroom and to a smaller second bedroom, reached by a steep staircase, which they moved to the core of the space. “The kitchen used to be under the mezzanine and there was lots of silver and wires everywhere. It was a bit like the Titanic. There was a wall dividing it up. What I needed was space.”
Barnett took inspiration from the kitchens of friends, including chefs Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley, who work with Yotam Ottolenghi; fashion designer Henry Holland; and presenter Nick Grimshaw. Her own was designed by Pluck, a south London company that specialises in clutter-free kitchens. “Look,” she says, opening the door of one of the elm units. Rows of storage jars reveal themselves on the back of the doors and on the shelves. “A built-in larder!”
The island, with its white veined marble worktop, is the kitchen’s showstopper. A touch of day-to-night glitz is provided by two white pendant globes from Soho Home. “It’s nice to have something that makes a statement. I can be the hostess with the mostess,” says Barnett, who runs cookery classes from home.
The flat works a restrained palette of shades of white offset by blocks of black. “I love colour,” she says. “I’m really drawn to it, but I also wanted a calm space.” The walls are painted in Flannel Flower Lime by lime-paint company Bauwerk Colour, the Crittall windows that overlook a courtyard in Little Greene’s Lamp Black, and the blinds are charcoal.
The flat’s natural light is what sold the space to Barnett. “Come spring the whole vibe of our home changes. The sun shines through all morning long, it’s my favourite part of the day and was a big part of wanting to share this space with people. It’s bright and calm. The challenge was to get the lighting right once the space is dark.” She worked with interior design company Studio Clement to create an open plan space that was “cohesive and worked in an ergonomic way, offering symmetry and fluidity”.
For Barnett, joy is in the detail. In the kitchen, the Himalayan pink salt in a jar on an open shelf matches a rose butter dish further along it. Accents of gold on white are everywhere, from the kitchen’s brass mixer tap, to the gold-framed Tracey Emin print – Barnett’s engagement present to Thom – to the light switches (by Buster and Punch) and rings of gold on the pendant lights.
There’s more gold in the bathroom, a “calm cocoon” off the tiny hallway. The black paintwork, including the ceiling, complements the white marble sink, and soothing amber marble tiling (from Mandarin Stone). “I’ve learned to just go with my gut feeling. I know what I like.” The brass taps, from Studio Ore, are impossibly glamorous. “They are my biggest extravagance. Thom was, like, we will take these with us when we leave!”
The feeling of tranquillity is continued with more soft whites in the main bedroom, from the cream headboard of their huge bed to the white panelling and matching linens and sheepskin rug. While the low ceilings mean this is not a space to do your sun salutations, it is a great spot to look down on Ted the Kerry Blue Terrier, often to be seen lying on the cream rug (by Danish company Menu), his black coat working the monochrome theme. A wall of exposed brick work offers more texture, as does the paintwork of the ceiling and dining area cupboards in Setting Plaster by Farrow & Ball. Two other paintings in, you guessed it, black and white, are by Barnett. “I saw something and copied it. I can always paint over it if I want to – do something bright.”
The dining table is covered in champagne coupes and flowers on the day I visit, lending the home a Mrs Dalloway air of expectation. “It’s important to be yourself and channel what you actually like, not buy into trends. I like change!”
