Just as his meals are made with simple ingredients that have tremendous flavor, his unassuming kitchen design, he says, is “layered with incredible rich and simple materials.” He used Jenn-Air Euro-Style stainless steel appliances but contrasted them with rustic surfaces: hand-made ceramic tiles for the backsplash, steel frames with a patina around the windows, and hand-scraped oak planks with a gray stain for the floor. The kitchen also flows into surrounding rooms, like the cozy living room filled with 19th- and 20th-century furniture.
The dream kitchen is surrounded by three glass walls and is meant to be an addition on the back of Paul’s brownstone building. The transparent walls make it greenhouse-like in appearance and provide a fantastic view of the lush garden outside. Having access to a garden also helps Paul stay more in tune to natural aspects of the environment. “When you live in a dense, urban environment, you miss the changing of the seasons,” he said. “I am in or [walking] through one the [New York City] parks every day. You see the budding of trees, you see when it’s dry…It’s important for me to feel that.”
Designed by Gary Paul, with Benjamin Brichta and Bryan Reitter.
