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The Perfect Kitchen
A chic, polished guide to creating your dream kitchen from the cofounder of Waterworks, with hundreds of images and practical advice.
The kitchen is the heart of the home, the destination of every party, everyone's favorite gathering spot, where style and functionality must go hand in hand. Designing a kitchen is a vastly complicated affair, involving an array of appliances (movable and fixed) and storage zones, not to mention addressing the kitchen's role as a multifunctional social arena to be used from very early in the morning until late into the night. Creating a timeless, high-functioning space is daunting indeed. Where is one to begin?
In The Perfect Kitchen , Waterworks cofounder Barbara Sallick explores the process of designing a kitchen in great and beautiful detail, from surfaces and finishes to storage, cabinetry, and hardware. The book is enriched by dozens of images of kitchens by esteemed designers such as Steven Gambrel, Gil Schafer, and Suzanne Kasler; essays by top food icons including Julia Turshen and Melissa Clark about their own kitchens; and important, how-to advice.
Combining evocative, informative photography with an authoritative, engaging narrative, The Perfect Kitchen is an essential, lasting resource that will appeal to discerning homeowners and professionals alike looking for upscale visual inspiration and design advice.
The kitchen is the heart of the home, the destination of every party, everyone's favorite gathering spot, where style and functionality must go hand in hand. Designing a kitchen is a vastly complicated affair, involving an array of appliances (movable and fixed) and storage zones, not to mention addressing the kitchen's role as a multifunctional social arena to be used from very early in the morning until late into the night. Creating a timeless, high-functioning space is daunting indeed. Where is one to begin?
In The Perfect Kitchen , Waterworks cofounder Barbara Sallick explores the process of designing a kitchen in great and beautiful detail, from surfaces and finishes to storage, cabinetry, and hardware. The book is enriched by dozens of images of kitchens by esteemed designers such as Steven Gambrel, Gil Schafer, and Suzanne Kasler; essays by top food icons including Julia Turshen and Melissa Clark about their own kitchens; and important, how-to advice.
Combining evocative, informative photography with an authoritative, engaging narrative, The Perfect Kitchen is an essential, lasting resource that will appeal to discerning homeowners and professionals alike looking for upscale visual inspiration and design advice.
272 pages, Hardcover
Published March 24, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 12, 2026
This book assumes that the question is "How many millions of dollars would you like to spend on your kitchen?" and that the answer is "Yes."
The photographs are of beautiful spaces that are in many ways unachievable and undesirable. The kitchens featured don't feel comfortable or homey: they feel like showpieces, with the expectation that a hired chef might come in once a week to cook the next week's worth of meals, or that the owners eat out entirely except for when they have a party catered (unless, of course, they are themselves a famous chef and expect their guests to gather round their kitchen island the size of New York and watch them cook). I was hoping to glean some design ideas for sprucing up my own kitchen and to use the photographs as a litmus test of likes and dislikes (e.g., What paint colors do I like in a kitchen? What sorts of countertops would work well with my existing white tile? Are there lighting fixtures I prefer?), but everything was so grand and remote that I mostly just re-learned that I hate palatial, ostentatious, and sterile-looking kitchens.
Where are the design books for cozy, home-y, down-to-earth kitchens, ones that look beautiful but also function optimally for a person or family who actually lives there? Surely there's a market for something other than bleak, sterile modernism, insipid farmhouse-luxe, and opulent caverns of marble and black lacquer. My kitchen does not have a vaulted ceiling and I like it that way, thank you very much.
The photographs are of beautiful spaces that are in many ways unachievable and undesirable. The kitchens featured don't feel comfortable or homey: they feel like showpieces, with the expectation that a hired chef might come in once a week to cook the next week's worth of meals, or that the owners eat out entirely except for when they have a party catered (unless, of course, they are themselves a famous chef and expect their guests to gather round their kitchen island the size of New York and watch them cook). I was hoping to glean some design ideas for sprucing up my own kitchen and to use the photographs as a litmus test of likes and dislikes (e.g., What paint colors do I like in a kitchen? What sorts of countertops would work well with my existing white tile? Are there lighting fixtures I prefer?), but everything was so grand and remote that I mostly just re-learned that I hate palatial, ostentatious, and sterile-looking kitchens.
Where are the design books for cozy, home-y, down-to-earth kitchens, ones that look beautiful but also function optimally for a person or family who actually lives there? Surely there's a market for something other than bleak, sterile modernism, insipid farmhouse-luxe, and opulent caverns of marble and black lacquer. My kitchen does not have a vaulted ceiling and I like it that way, thank you very much.
December 3, 2023
To begin with, this is a beautiful book to look at. It's sizeable, heavy, and has some gorgeous photography. I am in the process of getting a new kitchen, and I bought the book to help me in the process. It is geared to a high-end clientele, who can obviously afford to spend way more money than an average, middle class homeowner. It would have been more credible as a book if it actually made any suggestions as to how to realistically make a beautiful kitchen happen. The main substance comes in the form of several "experts" (food writers, chefs, and cookbook authors, for example) who actually offer helpful advice. If you just want to look at a lot of pretty pictures in an expensive book, this is for you. If, however, you are wanting something more practical, I'm afraid you will have to keep looking.
May 31, 2021
Buying a house right now and my wife wanted me to read this along with her. For what it is, really good. Her argument for focusing on aesthetics first over function was not something I expected to agree with. Beautiful pictures, some good ideas. If you are about to redo your kitchen or build, well worth the investment. Will take you a couple of hours to read through and could save you a lot of time and money.
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August 14, 2020This book h ed some great twists and turns! WWII is a sad subject but this book was a fabulous story as well.
October 11, 2025
Lots of great ideas but light on practical info like how much clearance to have for islands and stuff like that.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews