How Garde Hvalsøe gave a Danish chef’s kitchen a timeless revamp
‘The first thing I think about in the morning is, “What are we having for dinner tonight?”’ says Mikkel Egelund, chef and founder of Copenhagen’s Resto Bar and Pastis restaurants. Unsurprisingly, the kitchen is the most important room in his home – a 150-year-old townhouse in the city’s central Østerbro neighbourhood – which he shares with his wife, Jill Marie Zimsen, their two kids and their Jack Russell/Patterdale Terrier mix Benji (pictured below).
They wanted to maximise the space dedicated to the kitchen, which is situated at the heart of the house, and make it feel connected to the rest of the home. ‘We spend so much time there that it has to be a natural place to stand and talk, have a glass of wine or work,’ he says. Their idea was to infuse a professional kitchen’s functionality with a sense of warmth. ‘It was important for me that it was beautiful, but also a workplace,’ Mikkel explains.
He and Jill turned to Garde Hvalsøe to realise their vision. Having created homes for the Michelin-starred likes of Noma co-owner René Redzepi and Kadeau’s Nicolai Nørregaard, the Danish cabinet-makers knew what to expect from the brief. ‘The whole choreography of doing a kitchen for a professional is quite different to doing it for a regular person,’ says CEO Søren Lundh Aagaard. ‘A normal client would want a spacious experience, with a big distance from the fridge to the sink, but chefs want to take as few steps as possible.’
The couple wanted to replace dark-oak cabinetry with something brighter, so they opted for ash wood. ‘It had to be associated with the lovely light pine kitchens from the 1970s,’ says Mikkel. That hint of nostalgia is balanced by stainless-steel worktops, chosen because he thinks food looks better on steel and, he adds, ‘over a couple of years it has so many scratches, but that just makes it look more pretty’.
Lundh Aagaard couldn’t agree more. Both he and the firm’s founder, Søren Hvalsøe Garde, are trained cabinet-makers (and foodies), and that informs every decision they make. ‘The materials we work with always have the ability to patinate,’ he says.
As the kitchen plays such a central role in the house, the materials had to complement the colour palette devised by File Under Pop for the whole home. One practical yet stylish feature is what Mikkel calls the ‘flyer’ – a suspension floating above the island to keep essentials within easy reach. ‘I like an organised kitchen but also to be a bit messy!’ he says, admitting that what you see in these pictures is tidier than the everyday reality.
‘Normally pots and pans, onions and bananas are hanging all over the place!’ The chef relishes Fridays when, he explains, he ‘comes home early and opens the doors to the terrace, before picking up the box of vegetables I get every week from Italy and starting to cook with no plan’. Sundays, meanwhile, are good for slow cooking in big batches – ‘so, if the neighbours come by, there will be food for a whole family more, and if they don’t, we have extra meals throughout the week!’
Every detail of this kitchen expresses Denmark’s design legacy. ‘We stand on the shoulders of the architects of the golden age of Danish furniture from the 1950s to the 70s,’ says Lundh Aagaard. ‘Longevity is not just within the product itself, it’s also the aesthetics. If you are trend-driven, you lose this. A couple of months ago we resold a kitchen I built in the workshop 19 years ago,’ he continues. ‘It wasn’t much different from what we do today. That’s a sign of value and strength. It’s got to last at least 30 years without us having to come back.’ Mikkel and Jill can feel confident their kitchen isn’t going to pass its expiry date any time soon. gardehvalsoe.dk
