Stainless Still?

Kitchen designers doubt reports the finish is on its way out
By Rosalie Earle
22 April 2007

It was a news release that brought the bad news. Stainless steel’s dominance as the “in” metal is over.

The list of top 10 trends for 2007 was picked up by newspapers, kitchen and design newsletters and interior decorating Web sites.

“Warm-toned, oil-rubbed bronze and copper will become more prevalent in hardware, plumbing and lighting fixtures, and will also take center stage in both large and small appliances,” proclaimed a big-city architect in the release.

Charleston kitchen designers aren’t buying that.

“Stainless steel is here for a while,” said Darin Fisher of Darin Fisher Kitchen Designs in Kanawha City.

According to Mike Stockett at Warden’s Kitchen and Appliance Gallery in Spring Hill, “In the West Virginia market, normally the trends are slower getting here and in leaving here. I don’t see a slowdown in stainless steel.”

Alice Atkins McCoy of Alice Designs pointed out that as long as stainless steel is used for professional ranges, others will want it.

Still that most venerable of professional ranges, Viking, is adding more colors to its line, a Viking range representative told McCoy.

“Color is making a big comeback with Viking rolling out 10 new colors at the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show in Las Vegas in May. They have at least eight colors in their current offerings and the new colors are more pastel shades,” e-mailed McCoy, who has a studio in Jacksonville, Fla., as well as Charleston.

For Viking appliances, though, graphite gray and stainless steel are the most popular finishes, McCoy reported.

She did agree with the criticism of stainless steel — it shows fingerprints.

Manufacturers are using an imitation stainless steel, however, that doesn’t show fingerprints, Fisher said, adding, “All appliances have handles.”

“Stainless steel is a neutral; it’s not fighting with anything else,” he said. And it runs the spectrum of pricing. “You can spend $300 on a dishwasher or $1,500 … You don’t have to spend $40,000 to have the look.”

And that’s a good thing. Many homeowners who want to update their kitchens don’t have a budget big enough for wood panels to disguise their appliances.

Besides, what’s wrong with seeing appliances? After all, they are in a kitchen.

It’s personal preference, Fisher said. Because the refrigerator is such a large piece, it’s one of the first things you notice in a kitchen. A homeowner may want to integrate the fridge with a cover to match the cabinetry in order to make a decorative range hood or colorful tile backsplash the focal point.

One South Hills woman went with customized wood panels because she didn’t like the fact that the dishwasher could be seen from the foyer.

Souped-up stoves

Although stoves can’t be disguised, Fisher said there are different models that are more flush with countertops than the typical standalone. Viking and other high-end manufacturers make a designer series that’s sleeker, more curved, a little softer, said Fisher.

“A lot of people are hanging out in their kitchen and they are cooking.”

Viking and other high-end stoves with gas burners are popular for their power, which provides faster and higher heat.

McCoy said some of her younger clients who have never cooked with gas want a Viking stove. “I tell them to cook a meal with gas before they invest $6,000 in a stove.”

In their new house in Teays Valley, homebuilder Jason Steorts and his wife, Sara, have a GE Mangum stove with professional griddle and grill on top. The burners are gas; the oven is electric.

Sara Steorts’ favorite feature is the warming light that keeps the pizza warm. Delivered pizza? She just laughed.

Drawers to heat and to cool

When asked what else was trendy in kitchens, all three local designers mentioned warming drawers.

“People are learning how to use them,” McCoy said.

Fisher said, “They’re great to warm plates up in. You can make dishes ahead of time. I have one and use it all the time.”

Stockett said he’s designing more refrigeration outside of the main work area — smaller ones to hold children’s beverages or as a supplement to a larger refrigerator.

In new construction, additional under-the-counter refrigeration is often necessary, Fisher said, because there isn’t as much wall space as in traditional kitchens. “People are taking down wall space to open up the kitchen … They are using more windows,” he said. “There may be one wall for the stove and the refrigerator.”

So storage for food and dishes is going beneath the counter space and kitchen islands. Even microwaves are being installed below countertops.

Multitasking ovens

As for ovens, McCoy said, “Speed-cook ovens are so neat. They’re like Easy-Bake Ovens on steroids.”

Although they’ve been used for years in commercial kitchens, she said new technology has added the feature to quickly switch the heat quickly to a higher temperature.

“They serve a secondary oven as well as a microwave,” said Fisher, estimating they start at about $1,000.

The GE Wall Oven with Advantium 120 Speedcook Technology boasts that its “Halogen-light system speed cooks your favorite foods to delicious perfection in minutes with no preheating.”

Cooking up to four times faster than a conventional oven, GE says its wall oven is four ovens in one: it speed-cooks, microwaves, warms and is a true European convection oven.

“They’re meant to be a companion with another oven,” said Stockett, who said one version comes with more than 100 programmed recipes.

New technology has also merged the microwave with convection cooking.

Once used mainly in restaurants, the convection oven has a fan that circulates heat from the heating elements above and below.

“You don’t have the hot spots,” explained Fisher, allowing multiple racks of food to be cooked at the same time.

The cooking times and temperatures for a convection oven don’t necessarily correspond to those of a conventional oven. But some models have made the conversion automatically, “so you don’t have to learn a new way to cook,” Stockett said.

One GE convection over-the-range microwave oven sells in the range of $750.

Fridges don’t just

cool anymore

Cutting-edge products for the kitchen were displayed in February at the International Builders Show in Orlando, Fla., that attracted 1,900 exhibitors.

News reports on the show cited the trend of separating freezers and refrigerators. Bosch has three different widths and styles, including an 18-inch-wide freezer.

Gaggenau has introduced the Lift Oven, whereby the bottom of the oven drops down to counter level for easy removal. The oven will be available in the U.S. this summer for about $3,300.

Whereas the Steortses have a small television attached to the bottom of an upper cabinet, the LG Electronics refrigerator has a 15-inch high-definition LCD TV screen on its door, according to a Chicago Tribune story on the international show.

“The refrigerator also has a 4-inch screen that displays a five-day weather forecast, a recipe bank from the Culinary Institute of America and digital photos uploaded from a USB port. It will be available this spring for about $3,500,” the newspaper said.

A new product by Kitchen Aid is a two-drawer dishwasher that allows for smaller loads to be washed and to save energy. Together, a 10-place setting can be cleaned. Cost is $1,349.

Stockett said Fisher Paykel manufactures the two-drawer dishwasher under its own name and for other brands. Although the Australian company may have revamped its two-drawer dishwasher, Stockett said “out of the first six we sold, we had to take back five.”

The top-of-the-line appliances like the GE Mangum Collection, Viking, Subzero, Wolfe and others aren’t just finding a home in new and upscale houses. A recent survey by the Architect Association of American reports, “Upper end appliances are becoming more popular even for homes that are not in the upper end of the price range.”

Fisher said homeowners “may go upscale because they may want to resell in a couple of years. Kitchens really do sell the house … it’s the wow factor.”

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Kitchen Chic With Stainless Steel

By Stephanie Arasim Portnoy
March 05, 2007

Stainless steel kitchen gadgets are all the rage. Here’s how to reward your employees with the tools that top chefs use themselves.

When it comes to kitchen gadgets, silver is the new black—silver, that is, in the form of stainless steel, which is the material of choice for everything from refrigerators to toasters. “Before stainless steel, people were very fixated on black appliances,” says Allyson Krichman, senior director of business alliances at Pine Brook, N.J.–based Rymax Marketing Services. “In the 1960s, you had the ‘nice’ beautiful pastel, and it went from the bisques and whites to more of the black look …. Now they really want stainless.”

Although Mike Horn, director of merchandising at Hinda Incentives, says that his company’s most popular look for kitchen appliances is still white, he agrees that stainless steel kitchen gadgets have a following. “Stainless steel products represent elegance, class and success,” he says. “Stainless steel is hot and is definitely on the minds of many of today’s consumers.”

That could be because that sleek, modernist style is favored by today’s celebrity chefs. Stainless steel traditionally is used in restaurant kitchens on everything from appliances to countertops, because of its durability and its antimicrobial properties. Because many amateur chefs now aspire to be Bobby Flay in their spare time, the best way to embrace the Iron Chef image (even if you can’t cook) is to embrace the products that go with that image. Stainless steel also offers a sleek, European aesthetic that high-level executives can appreciate in interior design.

“We believe that stainless products represent the best in design, and there is definite trophy value in many stainless steel products, especially large appliances and cookware,” says Horn. “We always use stainless steel products in our [incentive] programs and usually use a high-end stainless steel appliance for the top levels.” Best-selling stainless rewards for Hinda include such products as Emerilware cookware, Cuisinart coffeemakers, De’Longhi toaster ovens and Krups espresso makers.

As kitchens become places where people not only cook but also relax and congregate, Krichman says that even electronics titans are starting to hop on the stainless steel bandwagon. Rymax recently began carrying a Toshiba 20-inch stainless steel LCD countertop television designed for kitchen placement. While you’re cooking in the kitchen, she says, “You can watch your cooking shows there as well.”

With their polished design and pro chef cachet, it seems the only complaint about stainless steel is that fingerprints show easily on these products. While Krichman argues that anything you use in the kitchen attracts fingerprints, she recommends a product called Monster ScreenClean (www.monstercable.com) that was created as a protectant for LCD TVs and computer monitor screens. “It actually takes fingerprints off everything,” she says. “You can not only clean your flat-screen TV with it, but also the stainless appliances.”

Whether your employees aspire to become iron chefs or simply want to put the pedal to the “metal” and spice up their kitchen design, these stainless steel products are sure to please.

1. Shake, Rattle, Then Rock n’ Roll

Two-martini lunches may be passé, but that doesn’t mean you can’t relax with a drink after hours. The Twist Cocktail Shaker by Fred Bould for Nambé mixes a mean batch of mojitos and looks beautiful on display when users are teetotaling. Because it’s made of a special thermal-retentive metal, the cold will instantly chill a drink, giving new meaning to the words happy hour.

2. Mix It Up

Stand mixers are the ultimate multitasking machine, allowing home chefs to continue their prep work or even relax with a glass of wine while dinner continues to make its way to the table. The KitchenAid Artisan Custom Metallic 5-Quart Stand Mixer in chrome includes a stainless steel bowl with an ergonomic handle. The set also includes a wire whip, a paddle attachment, a dough hook and a pouring shield to keep splatters to a minimum. Ten-speed control means you can have whipped cream, mashed potatoes or even chocolate soufflé in the blink of an eye.

3. Tea for Two

Take a break from the stress of everyday life with Top Brands’ Classic Stainless Steel Teakettle SL37-19. The 1.8-quart teakettle features an 18/10 stainless steel body with an aluminum disk on the bottom that conducts heat for quick boiling. Although the whistle pipes the tones of a Hohner harmonica when the water boils, nothing about this teakettle will have you singing the blues.

4. Microwave Magic

Heating up leftovers never looked so good before Panasonic introduced its NN-T665SF stainless steel microwave. It’s compact yet powerful, taking up just 1.2 cubic feet of space but packing 1,300 watts of power. The One-Touch Sensor Reheat and Turbo Defrost buttons make it easy to get dinner on the table in less time than you can call (and wait) for delivery.

5. Lots of Pots

Every foodie longs for a collection of Le Creuset’s rainbow-colored cast-iron cookware—and now the company has put the same sense of luxury into its stainless steel line of gourmet pots and pans. The line uses tri-ply technology (an aluminum core is sandwiched between layers of stainless steel) for optimum heat conducting. It’s dishwasher-safe and carries a lifetime warranty, which means this is the incentive that can keep on giving for generations of chefs in the family.

6. Coffee Break

You don’t need to be a professional barista to have gourmet coffee at home with Williams-Sonoma’s Jura-Capresso Impressa Fully Automatic Espresso Coffeemaker. Simply press a button on the sensor panel of this chrome-plated machine and you’ll feel like you’re having coffee, espresso or cappuccino out on the piazza. The recipient can control cup size, coffee strength and temperature, information that can be displayed in seven languages. With a refillable, 64-ounce water tank, users can pound up to 40 espressos before refilling. That will come in handy when prepping for a big presentation.

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High Drama In The Kitchen

As Cooking Takes Center Stage, Designs Become Sleek And Glossy
By JANET EASTMAN
March 2, 2007

Most of Mark Schomisch’s glass-walled house is so flooded with light that wearing sunglasses inside is almost necessary. Step into his kitchen, however, and night-vision goggles might be in order. It’s dark, with slick, black-tiled walls; black marble countertops; oak cabinets stained deep graphite; and dusky lights.

“I wanted the kitchen to be an oasis from the brightness,” says the interior designer, who remodeled his 1970s French-style house in the Hollywood Hills into a skylight-laden contemporary with views from the Sunset Strip to the ocean. Since he wanted to tear out convention along with the home’s faux mansard roof, he thought: Why not tuck the kitchen next to a shaded side yard and make it as dim as a movie theater?

“You could show a film in here,” he adds.

There’s a lot more drama in kitchens these days as they continue to take center stage in the home. Some don’t even look much like kitchens. Sinks and cooktops are concealed beneath sliding steel. Trash compactors and other practical-but-not-pretty elements are hidden in niches behind floor-to-ceiling paneled doors. “Sub rooms,” separate small areas off the kitchen, hold walk-in refrigerators; “dirty rooms” keep oil-splattering tasks contained and out of sight. Make a mess; close the doors; and the showcase kitchen remains uncluttered and tidy.

Kitchens are getting bigger and are being used more often as the place to entertain, says Ed Pell, manager of market research for the National Kitchen & Bath Association, who says consumers spent $127 billion in 2006 on kitchen remodels.

“Cooking has become as much a hobby as a necessity,” he says. “A lot of people now do gourmet cooking, or think they do, and they want to show off.”

Status kitchens, no longer just a place to rattle pots and pans, sport nontraditional colors on walls, doors, cabinetry and countertops. A steel island with glossy electric-blue pearwood panels anchors a new kitchen designed by Geoffrey Frost of Downsview Kitchen Studio of Los Angeles. Frost considers backsplashes another place to add bold colors. He used bright red quartz in an Encino, Calif., home and tiny mosaic tiles in gray, blue, mauve and pearly tones in a Beverly Hills kitchen where the residents display their folk-art collection.

Sleek, ebony-stained, lacquered or laminated surfaces have been popular in lofts for a few years, but now tract houses are embracing this contemporary furniture look.

Peek into a kitchen these days and you may wonder: Is that a polished black-and-steel credenza in the middle of the room or a kitchen island with a discrete cooktop?

When Schomisch bought his Hollywood Hills house in 2005, it had a French bistro-type kitchen with hand-painted ceramic tiles and a brick fireplace. That’s all gone, and now the centerpiece is an island with a 6-inch-thick, seamless slab of St. Laurent marble.

Schomisch first saw midnight-colored marble like it in a New York hotel. He bought enough – at $75 a square foot – to crown the island and countertops, and found less expensive look-alike tiles to cover the walls.

The telltale signs of a kitchen are hard to find here. Tall doors hide a second sink and bar glasses. A glass-front Viking refrigerator, triple-temperature Viking wine cooler and Míele double oven and warming drawer are lined up on both sides of the entrance so they aren’t noticeable right away.

Cabinets are underneath the countertops, not above them. “It’s frighteningly functional,” he says. “There is tons of storage, just no cabinets where you would expect them to be at eye level.”

When he’s entertaining, he says, the mood shifts in a few steps, from a sunning-around-the-pool attitude outside to mellow romance inside the kitchen.

“When I’m in here, I almost expect to see someone playing a piano in the corner,” Schomisch says. A center soffit with a frosted-panel skylight and dimming bulbs provides soft illumination.

Museum-quality spotlights beam onto a graceful metal sculpture of a woman, standing on an otherwise vacant counter, something else you don’t expect to see in a kitchen.

“The color of the kitchen sets the stage for elegance, whether you’re having a cocktail or eating your cereal,” Schomisch says. “There’s something warm about the dark.”

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