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Although the footprint was petite, the apartment had high ceilings, and Ahlefeld used literally every inch of wall space, going floor to ceiling, and incorporating a rolling ladder for ease of reach. Not only is this a smart use of space that allowed so much storage, but for Settle it also served an even higher purpose. 

“Displaying everything that you have kind of opens your mind up to the possibilities,” she says. “So much of the time we’re hiding our appliances and stuff in cabinets because we’re like, ‘it’s disrupting the counter space,’ or ‘it’s not attractive,’ and then kind of forget what our capabilities are. Whereas in this kitchen I could see deeply in my mind what I can accomplish here.” 

Everything we needed for the dinner parties was beautifully displayed, complete with an adjustable lighting system. The key here, Ahlefeld says, is an idea he uses often for fashion shows.

“Just choose something that is interesting and then multiply it by a lot,” he says. In this case, the rows of inexpensive white plates. Find something you like, he says, and “take a lot of them and it looks amazing, whatever it is.”

On one long wall, shallow ledges held the simple white plates and small bins for cutlery as well as glasses and stemware. The opposite side displayed Ahlefeld’s prized collection of jars, inspired by the original 10 classic green glass jars his mom collected at flea markets and left to him. After building up a collection, he uses them to store dozens of ingredients. The jars get an enthusiastic thumbs up from Settle. Stateside, “I am a huge proponent of Ball jar systems,” she says. So much so that her home system is Ball jars. She stores basically everything in them and labels them by their contents. “It’s super cheap,” she says, to get the jars at a grocery store, and “it has this air of being both industrial but also homey.”

Of course, not everything is attractive. For things like the food processor and other small appliances and tools, Ahlefeld added lower shelving that he enclosed behind sliding screens. 

Swinging cabinet doors wouldn’t have worked with the limited space between the wall and the massive dining table, so he worked with an artisan ironworker who devoted several days to this piece of the project. Aiming for an industrial vibe, they built the sliding screens from real iron. Ahlefeld says, “And it’s really bolted; it’s not welded together or anything. It’s basically done exactly as the Eiffel Tower is done with manual bolts.” How chic is that?

When we’re thinking about kitchen design in the U.S., we often tend to think in zones — and that we need an island and tons of counter space. Kai’s Kitchen has almost zero counter space once the gorgeous beast of a SMEG range and the oversized sink were in, but it did have a behemoth wooden dining table, along with an extremely multifunctional rolling cart topped with a hefty butcher block.

Settle single-handedly prepared a multi-course meal for a dozen of us using that block, plus the table. She was more than comfortable making use of unorthodox spaces, having spent so many years in restaurant kitchens where she sometimes needed to be creative and, say, use the bar as a prep area if that’s where the handiest outlet was located. “You shouldn’t limit yourself to one square in the kitchen,” she says. “You should cook where you feel comfortable.” 

The rolling butcher block held shelves packed with spices, and sported a knife rack, to boot. She used it just as Ahlefeld intended, to let diners see her at work, and then we served from it. The two parties feel like a dream, in retrospect. Settle is still dreaming about it. “I felt really free in that kitchen,” she says. “I had everything at my disposal. I was like, ‘If something doesn’t work out, it’s fine. I can fix it, because I have all of this efficient use of space and equipment.’” It doesn’t get much smarter than that.