The Toronto kitchen of architect Deborah Wang bears all the hallmarks of contemporary culinary design. Wall-to-wall glass floods the space with natural light. Sleek white cabinetry creates a sharp, modern appearance. Even functional elements like the stainless steel range hood feel sculptural, if minimal, rather than utilitarian.
But unlike most current kitchens, it’s not part of an open-concept floor plan. Instead, it’s tucked at the back of the semi Wang shares with her partner, fellow architect Will Elsworthy. The dining and living areas are separate, running counter to the long-standing belief that modern life should unfold in one expansive, shared space.
The dining and living area of Wang and Elsworthy’s home are separate, straying from the long-standing belief that modern life should happen in one space.Jenna Marie Wakani/The Globe and Mail
Closed kitchens, often dismissed as outdated, are making a quiet comeback, after 50 plus years of open plans dominating residential design and home reno TV. Since the birth of Instagram and Pinterest in 2010, the idea of an open plan kitchen has flooded our social-media feeds. Without the drama of tearing down walls, HGTV shows might not be as popular – even if sometimes the walls should stay up.
To my own relief, architects and homeowners are rediscovering the practical and aesthetic advantages of defined cooking spaces. My personal favourite kitchen was a galley in my first adult apartment. Because it was largely unseen from the dining and living areas, it took the pressure off me to be entertaining while I was scrambling to finish food for a dinner party. Instead of calm, cool or social, sometimes all I wanted to do was curse out Julia Child for making such complicated recipes.
There are plenty of benefits to closed kitchens: The noise, mess and smells of meal preparation are easily contained. Walls offer creative freedom – allowing adjacent rooms to have their own identities without worrying about visual clashes. And, as Wang demonstrates, a closed kitchen can be just as contemporary and expressive as anything trending online.
Wang, who grew up in a home with a separate kitchen, isn’t opposed to openness. As artistic director of DesignTO, Canada’s largest design festival, she promotes cutting-edge design every day. “I like spaces that flow from one to the next,” she says. “I like open spaces.”
But her home’s layout, which dates back more than a century, to the pre-HGTV age, also reflects its historical context. The Victorians had walls, and those walls can still be useful. “We put 15 linear feet of storage along one wall of the kitchen,” says Wang. “That’s a lot. We’re never scrambling to find space to put something.”
Wang, left, says the 15 linear feet of storage along the wall in the kitchen is a lot, but they are ‘never scrambling to find space to put something.’Jenna Marie Wakani/The Globe and Mail
The tension between open and closed kitchens has historical roots. John Ota, a designer and bestselling author of The Kitchen: A journey through history in search of the perfect design, points out that until the 1700s, many people essentially spent their lives in an open kitchen.
“Almost everyone inhabited a single-room dwelling with a central hearth for cooking and preparing food,” he says. “It wasn’t until the 17th century that things started to shift, when the French King Louis XIV decreed that the elite had to have separate kitchen and dining areas.”
The trend toward closed kitchens accelerated with the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the middle class. As more people attained wealth in the Victorian age, “it became a mark of gentility to have distinct dining and cooking areas,” says Ota.
To Ota, kitchens reflect the culture, and the return to the open kitchen in modern times is in part a reflection of how casual society has become. “People don’t fuss so much over manners the way they might have in the 19th century,” says Ota. “These days, people wear baseball caps to dinner. Not everyone minds seeing a stack of dirty dishes in the sink at a dinner party.”
A resurgence of closed kitchens doesn’t necessarily indicate a renewed preference for Victorian manners. I like closed kitchens but have never nor would ever wear an ascot to dinner. Design is also more pluralistic these days. “There are as many kinds of kitchens as there are people,” says Ota, who has an open kitchen himself, but is considering adding sliding partition to close it off from time to time.
“My wife prefers a closed kitchen,” he explains. “She doesn’t like when dinner guests see the stack of dirty dishes in the sink. She thinks it makes them feel obliged to offer to help wash up.”
Architect Heather Dubbeldam designed a closed kitchen for writer and ceramicist Athena Sarracini to preserve the tension and intrigue that comes with separate living, dining and kitchen areas.Riley Snelling/Supplied
Sarracini says the kitchen and dining room of her house have two different moods. The kitchen is bright and colourful, while the separate dining room is more dramatic.Riley Snelling/Supplied
Heather Dubbeldam is a highly decorated Canadian architect who recently won the King Charles III Coronation Medal for Architecture. She has designed several closed kitchens for clients but insists she is a modernist at heart. “I don’t think Victorian houses work for contemporary life,” she says. “Even when I‘m working on closed kitchens, it’s not a throwback. The design has to work for the way my clients live now.”
Dubbeldam sees the shift toward more discrete spaces as a desire for people to have more sensuality, even drama in their homes. “People spent a lot of time at home during the pandemic,” she says. “They want variety now – spaces that evoke different moods and allow for transition throughout the day, a sense of discovery.”
The arched hallway dividing Sarracini’s kitchen and dining room is a functional transition space with a built-in bar.Riley Snelling/Supplied
That appeal resonated with her client, writer and ceramicist Athena Sarracini. “After the initial wow, there’s less room for surprise with an open concept design,” she says, adding that when she and her husband decided to renovate their downtown Toronto house, “we wanted to preserve the tension and intrigue that comes with a traditional hallway and separate living, dining and kitchen areas.”
For Sarracini, Dubbeldam designed a striking arched hallway to divide the kitchen and dining room. The hallway is a functional transition space. It has a built-in bar and provides a buffer between the aesthetics of the adjoining rooms.
Shopping guide: High-tech gadgets are cool but the smartest buy for your kitchen is a chef’s knife
“Our kitchen and our dining room have two quite different moods,” says Sarracini. “The kitchen is bright and colourful, and the dining room is more dramatic. It’s by no means formal, but sitting in a dining room for a meal does feel like an occasion. I also like leaving the sink full of pots behind.”
For die-hard open-concepters, Dubbeldam notes that there are many ways to create a sense of separation without building solid walls. “There are ways to shift elevation with stairs or ceiling height,” she says. “Things don’t have to be truly enclosed.”
Another solution is the so-called “spice kitchen”– a secondary, often hidden cooking space adjacent to a more public-facing one. “The idea is to contain the heat, smoke and smell of cooking in one area,” says Ota.
On its face, this kitchen by interior designer Joy Chao is open, but off to the side there is a smaller ‘caterer’s kitchen.’Andrew Latreille/Supplied
Both kitchens share the same cabinetry and finishes, but the enclosed space is optimized for cooking with a wok. It includes a built-in drainboard, as the pan needs to be washed and dried immediately.Andrew Latreille/Supplied
Interior designer Joy Chao of Vancouver-based JHA has designed more than 20 such kitchens. “We also call them wok kitchens, dirty kitchens or caterer’s kitchens,” she says. “They’re popular in many cultural communities.”
In one recent project, Chao created a wok kitchen to match its neighbouring space. Both share the same white cabinetry and stainless-steel finishes. But the enclosed space is optimized for its purpose. “There’s a built-in drainboard, because woks need to be washed and dried immediately,” she says. “And the vent hood is commercial-grade to handle the smoke.”
Importantly, the two spaces are separated by a sliding door made with clear glass. “My clients wanted to be able to look out and see their friends or family in the open kitchen,” she explains. “Kitchens are always social spaces, they are gathering spaces. That’s something that will always be the same.”
Design advice
Five ways to plan a closed kitchen with plenty of function and style
As a senior designer with AyA Kitchens for nearly two decades, Heather Raininger can make almost any culinary space shine – including one for a couple who only sous vide their food. “They didn’t want an oven,” she says.
She attributes the return of closed kitchens to several factors, including multigenerational living and the rise of remote work. “Some people need more privacy than an open kitchen can provide,” she says.
For those worried that a closed kitchen might feel too confined, Raininger offers strategies to keep things functional and beautiful. Here, her top five tips:
1. Rethink storage
Making room for the essentials – key appliances, heirloom china – is important, but wall-to-wall cabinetry isn’t always necessary. “Open shelving adds storage and creates an airy feel,” she says. “Or use cabinets with glass doors to keep things light.”
2. Turn the door into a feature
If the kitchen has a door, make it part of the design. “Consider stained glass or French doors with panels,” she suggests. “They offer separation while still letting light through.”
3. Create zones
Narrow kitchens can feel crowded. “Zoning helps,” Raininger says. “A spot for coffee, another for chopping. Even two feet of separation can make the zones more functional, less cramped.”
4. Add character
Zones can have a double benefit, providing space to create visual focal points. “Using different materials can delineate zones and add personality,” she says. “It helps make the kitchen a more interesting place to be.” For example, try hard-wearing materials like stained wood shelves for a high-traffic coffee bar and a stain-resistant counter that might be a different colour from the rest of the space.
5. Embrace the nostalgia
Closed kitchens can feel traditional – and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. “More classic wooden cabinets are coming back,” she says. “But you can balance them by mixing with white, modern ones as well.” The mix can help the space to feel fresh, not dated.
