'Back kitchen' - WTAF?

[Devora]

The Jan issue of Real Homes has a feature on trends for 2016. Apparently the newest thing is a 'back' kitchen, where you can do, um, all that stuff that needs to be done in actual kitchens.

Here's a quote from the founder of Architect Your Home: "Kitchens have become an integral part of family/living/dining spaces and, as such, have had to become more stylish. While appliances are more elegant than ever, more functional designs can be hidden in a pantry or back kitchen... The danger in creating an extra room like this is that it could undermine the open-plan feel of the kitchen-diner. To avoid this, keep it simple in form and away from views through or out of the house, so as not to interfere with your main space."

Moving between two kitchens every time you cook is not going to be at all annoying, obviously. So I guess over time you do all your kitchen work in the back kitchen, leaving your front version an a very expensive accessory, a fantasy kitchen!

Own up, MNetters, has anybody got a back kitchen?

Oh, the other trend is TWO islands - anyone gone that route?

Not got one now but have had in the past in a house designed to be staffed. I wouldn't actually mind one, essentially a glorified utility room for the mucky jobs like scrubbing muddy veg, preparing game etc.

have a large pantry in which I keep the second fridge and have things like the food mixer, toaster and bread maker out on the worktop.

I also have a laundry room where the washing machine and tumble drier live.

Never thought of it as particularly strange

So a utility?

No, not a utility - I have no quibble with utility!

The article said it's for your ugly appliances - fridge/freezer, extra ovens etc. The bit that most got me was the suggestion you hide it from view - surely to be useful it has to be like most utilities, right next to your kitchen?

Anyway, I'm probably bitter because I've got a crappy front kitchen, let alone a back one...

ProjectPerfect - I have literally never seen such a thing, and I'm older than Moses. You don't live in London, do you? Or are you just uber-rich?

We had one when I was growing up in the family Scottish farmhouse and strangely I have a smaller one in my house now. It's not a made up thing.

My Gran called her kitchen "the working kitchen". She only had the one

Extra ovens?! Why do people have extra ovens?!

OK, derxa, I will retire defeated. I don't even have a dishwasher so obviously I have a hill to climb and you are all up there already

Real Homes should read this thread as it is obviously not a new trend at all...

Don't get me wrong, my fantasy kitchen would include both a utility room and a pantry. But they'd be off the kitchen, and their function would not be to preserve the 'elegance' of my on-show appliances

It's definitely got to be next to the kitchen. The more I think about it the more I'd like it. Laundry is already in its own room but another kitchen with the big free standing appliances and a whole other cooker for the noisy or smelly cooking ( eg pressure cooker, slow roasts, kippers) would be great.

Ideally, I'd like to have my own kitchen. dp can have another, to leave her toastcrumbs and mess in. The dc can have a third, complete with a cook/housekeeper.

Real Homes also reckons that 'individualised ensuites' are now de rigeur - with personalised aesthetics marking out not just your own sink, but bath/shower etc. I'm not quite getting the concept, but imagining metro tiles down one side of the room and travertine on the other.

OK, derxa, I will retire defeated. Not a sentence I see ever on MN!
I think there is a trend for old-fashioned ideas such as pantry/ back kitchen/boot room. It gives the idea of country house living. Although my mother's back kitchen was the very opposite of Homes and Gardens.

surely the "back kitchen" is the kitchen, and the "front kitchen" is a display area of purely ornamental value?

I suppose the gardener and domestic staff might eat in the back kitchen, or take their dirty boots off in there, as might children and husbands.

I have a back kitchen and am not posh at all

It is a bit of a utility room, washer/ drier, freezer x 2, fridge and cooker as well as a pantry.

I use both kitchen and back kitchen all the time. My digs are both raw Fred, hence 2nd freezer. Main kitchen has an American fridge freezer - the freezer side is small ( we regularly get cut off in the winter, so need supplies kept topped up), so another 'human freezer in back kitchen.
Main cooker is gas, back kitchen cooker electric, and comes into its own at Christmas, or if I am making stock/soups/casseroles, I often use the back kitchen cooker.

I love having the second kitchen, all the shit is hidden from view. DH home brews as well, so all the paraphernalia is out of the way. We deliberately added this to the house and it was the best thing we did.

My main kitchen still looks like a bomb site most days .....

I know people who have what they call a back kitchen. Basically a utility room, washer, dryer, extra fridge/freezer/sink and some cupboards. I just call it a utility with a fridge in. I'd love to have a house big enough for such a thing. I think someone has decided that because people have openplan kitchen/dining/living areas these days there should be an out of the way place to do messy stuff in, hence a back kitchen. To be honest if you had that much money that you could affors double all appliances you could just order your food in and just throw all your plates away afterwards!!

It's an old thing, I grew up on a Scottish farm and 'the back kitchen' was very common. Sort of a combination of a scullery/pantry/utility/boot room. Always freezing and useful for storing stuff when entertaining large numbers of people (20+ people). My Mum had her washing machine, tumble drier, airing cupboard, chest freezer, spare hob (gas for when the electricity failed, a common occurrance) in there as well as loads of food storage (she had verey rare supermarket trips when she bought store cupboard items in bulk). Most cooking was done in the main kitchen (classic enormous farmhouse kitchen), the back kitchen was used for extra cooking when more space was needed.

Buggery. My DOGS are raw FED.

God knows who Fred is, but he don't live here

Devora - never heard of a back kitchen either, although wasn't Ed Milliband photographed with his wife in theirs during the General Election?

It sounds like Edwardian times to me; where the scullery was what most of us think of now as the kitchen, and the kitchen was a more informal living room than the parlour, which was used infrequently.

Yes, my friend has one. It has all the appliances in it for laundry and a giant sink, extra fridge and freezer. She also cleans dirty things like the dog/football boots etc

It means the kitchen is more tidy, and she has a nice table and chairs in it.

Ah yes, Ed is obviously a reader of Real Homes.

I should never have started this thread. I'm now feeling that I NEED a back kitchen.

Friends of ours from posh area just north of London have just had a new kitchen extension and have left the old cooker and kitchen in the new "back kitchen" to actually cook in. They spent more on doing their house up than ours is worth though!

A 'human' freezer

I suppose it's the difference between a super utility room, and a run-of-the-mill futility room.

Just stick and extra fridge/freezer and a single hob in your futility room et voila, a back kitchen!

If you had a lot of staff, you might consider a kitchen diner and a separate formal diner plus a utility and a back kitchen and boot rooms of course

But would you also want a pantry with your back kitchen?? Or would this form part of the back kitchen ?

Endless options..... We are limited only by money.