Photography by Kevin Roberts
Chef Kirk Warner comes to your home—or anywhere else you choose—to cook for you. He’s cooked in ships’ galleys and kitchenless boardrooms; in elegant 1940s-era apartments with barely enough room to turn around; in kitchens where he’s been “just floored by the grandeur: sous-vide equipment, copper La Cornue stoves custom-made in France—we’re talking $40,000 a stove.” Honestly, though, what matters most to Warner, the founder and owner of Kirk’s Traveling Kitchen, is counter space. The kitchen itself doesn’t have to be vast and roller-bladable. But it does need to give him room to work his magic.
One of your clients has three kitchens in one of her houses. Describe, oh, just the largest one. It looks like a set for a Food Network show—all custom cabinetry and an island bigger than whole kitchens in apartments I’ve lived in. The island’s probably 8 feet by 12 feet, and it has built-in cutting boards. When I come home, I go straight to John Boos in Effingham, Ill.—they make butcher blocks, and he has an outlet store.
After cooking in that kitchen, how do you handle the more…challenging spaces? When they’re small and cluttered—I once prepared a meal in a galley kitchen, and they had these little tchotchkes, little porcelain kittens and things, all over the kitchen, and onlyslivers of counter space. I think maybe they had a farmhouse sink, too. I remember just sort of standing there staring.
You sound just a little bitter about farmhouse sinks. The first thing I do after we unload is fill half of a divided sink with warm, soapy water, because I like to keep the counters spotless. So if it’s one of those big open sinks, I don’t know what to do.
What tricks have you learned to cope? We bring everything in—all the serviceware, pots and pans, food. If there’s a lot of stuff on the counters, we’ll consolidate. And if there’s absolutely no counter space, we’ll stack up the totes and put our cutting boards and equipment on top of them.
I gather you like to keep things spit-spot, not a cheerful mess? Oh yeah. I clean up as I go. And I like using a bench knife—the kind bakers use to get extra flour off the counter—to clean off the counter.
What’s the first thing you do when you set foot in a new client’s kitchen? I play a little game with myself: three seconds to guess where the silverware is, where the utensils are.
I run about 50–50. You figure out just where the silverware ought to be, and you open that drawer, and it’s stuffed with old bills and coasters.
Have you ever found anything you really didn’t expect? Somebody had a countertop stove, and underneath it, way in the back, they had a stuffed beaver—scared the crap out of us.
What is your first clue that the homeowner doesn’t cook? If they still have the cookware they were given when they got married 30 years ago…or the spices look like they’ve been around since ’76.
And what are some of the signs of a well-used kitchen? Real cooks tend to have a bit more clutter on their counters—unless their aesthetic is sleekly modern—because they want stuff within reach. And compost pails—people that compost are people that cook.
What details do you welcome? I do always appreciate the built-in drawers for recycling and garbage, versus the ones where you have to step on a pedal. Whenever we go into a place, we take the lid off the can.
What’s the coolest equipment, in your personal opinion? A wood-burning oven or grill. That’s like heaven to me. I don’t care if there’s four feet of snow on the ground.
What gizmos do many people buy and never, ever use? Ice-cream machines, pasta machines. I think the pasta maker—the kind you clamp to the counter and crank—has got to be the least-used appliance. I see more of those—people get married and think they’re going to make pasta from scratch every week.
Your best bet for a helpful appliance? Immersion blenders. People really use those.
What kind of kitchen design do you like? I like open and airy kitchens. I like subway tile. You see less stainless steel now; people aren’t mimicking the commercial kitchen as much. They’re concealing the appliances.
And what’s your personal aesthetic? I’m not a big fan of flourishes. People get these great kitchens and then fill them with purely decorative stuff, like fake fruit. In my opinion, kitchens should be more utilitarian. Anything decorative should be something that’s going into the food.
Does a great view make a difference? What’s the best view you’ve seen? I’ve cooked at a house in St. John in the Virgin Islands where you walk out of the kitchen through palm trees to a private white-sand beach. You can stand there doing dishes all day looking at that view. But there’s a trade-off—there’s no good food available there!
Of all the kitchens, in all the houses…which one has been your favorite? I saw the clients a couple of weeks ago. They have a kitchen designed by a person who owns a restaurant in St. Louis, and they bought the home from him. I told them, “If you ever put this house on the market, let me know.” It’s an old Clayton/University City house with an addition, and the kitchen is a fourth of the size of the house. There’s a 30-foot-long island with bar stools, sinks at either end, and just clean, flat surface in between. There’s a stove in back, and more flat surface—marble. And there are wine coolers and things, all contemporary, clean lines.
No little porcelain kittens? And no stuffed beaver.
