The kitchen represents the heart of the home for most of us but some kitchens just stay in our hearts for ever. Here are a few kitchens from books, film and television you might recall…
The Darling Buds of May, 1990s
Is there a more quintessentially country kitchen than that of Ma and Pop Larkin? A baby blue and maroon 1950s post-war kitchen (in a 18th-century farmhouse) and a table laden with Ma’s freshly made pies and Pop’s bottle of whisky. Perfick.
Amelie, 2001
The mismatched, oh-so Parisian kitchen of Amélie Poulain in this cult French film is as idiosyncratic as the main character herself. Note the red and minty green palette, checkerboard tiles, formica table, vintage posters and traditional French cookware.
Ozark, 2017
An authentic mid-century galley kitchen with fluted glass cabinets, stainless steel sink and huge hatch to the living room, where the Byrde family conduct hushed rows and hatch money laundering plans over enormous glasses of wine.
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, 1948
This novel throws us straight into the 1930s kitchen of a tumbledown castle. Cassandra Mortmain tells us “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. The rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog’s blanket and the tea cosy,” as she writes in her journal.
Bridget Jones’s Diary, 2017
What you make of Bridget’s kitchen in the original novel is of course your own business but that super cosy kitchen from the original film is the kitchen we all wanted to own. While Bridget was lamenting her blue soup we were all planning to repaint our cupboards light blue, invest in a red worktop and add fairy lights to recreate that fun, bohemian kitchen. V good.
Downton Abbey, 2010-2015
Stepping into Mrs Patmore and Daisy’s below-stairs servants’ kitchen is like a tour of a National Trust property. Copper pans glimmering on the shelves in the half-light, huge flagstone tiles and that enormous range cooker. Who wouldn’t want to steal five minutes for a cup of tea at that wooden prep table?
The Tiger Who Came to Tea, 1968
The backdrop for the story of the Tiger who popped in for a snack and then drank all the water in the taps and all of Daddy’s beer is based on children’s author Judith Kerr’s real kitchen. A section of it is now housed in the Seven Stories museum in Newcastle. The yellow worktop, white Formica cupboards and blue and white tiles are iconic now and featured in several of her books, including Mog the Forgetful Cat.
If you’d like to step back in time into some more iconic kitchens, you’ll want to read our feature ‘What’s Cooking’ in our October issue, which looks at the fascinating history of the kitchen.
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