If you, like me, were thoroughly charmed by Samin Nosrat’s whole-face smile and bottomless curiosity in her 2018 Netflix series Salt Fat Acid Heat, you’ll be delighted to discover that her home kitchen in Oakland, CA, is as warm and joyful and unpretentious as she is.
The Chez Panisse-trained chef and food writer—her latest cookbook, Good Things, was released a couple months ago—lives in a small cottage in an urban compound of homes that share a courtyard (we featured the lovely communal setup in our 2022 book Remodelista: The Low-Impact Home). Her galley kitchen is tiny. There’s no marble-topped island, no walk-in larder, no appliance garage, not even a full-sized refrigerator.
Yet—it is in this humble, compact space, right next to the stairs, she where she creates delicious dish after delicious dish, often to feed loved ones. Her new book, subtitled “Recipes and Rituals to Share With People You Love,” speaks to this core ethos: cooking can be an act of generosity, a gift of your time and care and attention. You don’t need a Lacanche range to be a better cook or more engaged friend—just some well-designed, durable tools and a commitment to nourish your relationships.
Samin’s kitchen isn’t fancy, but it’s not lacking in style. Far from it. “Beauty and utility is sort of my personal design motto,” Samin tells us. Let’s take a tour—of both her cozy home kitchen and her nearby sparkling-new test kitchen.
Photography by Aya Brackett.
Home Kitchen
Above: Her favorite things in the kitchen? “I love my little custom-made speedrack for half-sheet pans! It triples the amount of horizontal space I have in this tiny kitchen. I love all the windows, and the apron sink is beautiful,” says Samin. The European-style dish rack in the corner was custom-made by Michael Mellon.
Above: “I always grow shell beans, even if it’s not the most efficient use of a small garden space, because I love them and they fill the garden so beautifully. Most of these seeds came from Franchi.” Samin collects wooden bowls from vintage shops and flea markets. “My favorite local spot is Talisman Antiques in Oakland. I also have one new bowl from Holland Bowl Mill,” she shares. A girl after our own heart, she uses a plastic-bag drying rack so that she can wash and reuse.
Above: Samin hung onion baskets on the wall to store ingredient staples. She purchased them from Remodelista favorite, Sugar Tools, in Maine.
Above: “My love of splatterware was inspired by my friend Greta Caruso’s collection. It was through her that I learned about the Fasano family in the town of Grottaglie in Puglia. I hunt for it on eBay, Etsy, and a few obscure Italian websites. I also have a few pieces from (RIP!) March in San Francisco.” (The beloved store, another Remodelista favorite, will be shuttering November 21.)
Above: The cutting board is from The Boardsmith. “I use it all day, every day for everything except raw meat (I use plastic boards for that since they are easier to clean), and we used it a ton when shooting the book.”
Test Kitchen
Above: “The studio kitchen is for work cooking (as opposed to home cooking)—recipe testing, developing, cooking (and some craft) projects, and for making large batches of things like jam. While it’s not huge by any means, it’s a bit bigger than my kitchen at home, and outfitted with some professional gear,” says Samin, who rarely leaves home without her sidekick dog, Fava.
Above: Samin collaborated with her friend, designer Meghan Dorrian (of Young America Creative) on the new cook space. The turquouise-green tiles are from Clé Tile. “I chose the color because a) it’s my favorite color, and b) it reminds me of the great tradition of Iranian mosaic tilework, specifically the mosques in Isfahan I visited with my grandmother 20-some years ago.” As for the smattering of gold tiles? “Im Persian! I love a little gold! I would have used more, but I could only afford 6 of the gold tiles.”
Above: “I’ve long heard about the superior BTU power of Blue Star stoves. This 6-burner model has a convertible two-burner grill and griddle, and you can adjust the height of the burners to give you precise control of the heat,” says Samin. On the stove is a Japanese copper tea kettle—”the first really nice thing I bought for my kitchen”—from Analogue Life.
Above: Samin loves hanging storage. A rail with S-hooks, installed just under the floating shelf, provides ample options for storing kitchen tools. “We had the metal worker who made the pot rack fabricate them for me.”
Above: Her proudest detail may just be the brass pot filler. “Ever since I first encountered one of these in a restaurant kitchen, I’ve wanted one in my own kitchen. It was almost symbolic, like a personal sign of my success, to have one of these. And it saves my back!”
For more cook’s kitchens, see:
