A Colorful Kitchen on Nantucket
There can never be too many cooks in this kitchen, owned by a couple of restaurateurs.
Photo by Tom Olcott
When a leaky dining room ceiling forced restaurateurs Angela and Seth Raynor to renovate the first floor of their Nantucket home, the couple jumped at the chance to redo their kitchen: a cramped galley space that hadn’t been updated in some 25 years. Lacking sufficient work and entertainment areas, the outmoded room was so inadequate that Seth—a chef—didn’t enjoy prepping meals there.
To build the hard-working hub they craved for cooking and hosting visitors, the pair turned to Emeritus principal Matthew MacEachern, who more than doubled the kitchen’s size by absorbing the adjacent screened porch and transforming an attached shed into a pantry. The reconfigured room, now at 550 square feet, centers around a new 12-foot island, outfitted with a range and seating to enable socializing during the couple’s dinner parties. Behind the oversize piece, three and a half feet of clearance allows guests—who often help make meals—to access the two full-size refrigerators and pass freely to the pantry. “There’s no such thing as too many cooks in our kitchen,” says Angela, who was heavily involved in the interior-design process.
While Seth reigns at the range, Angela, a longtime sourdough-bread baker, dominates the baking area on the other side of the room, outfitted with two ovens, an induction cooktop, and two refrigerator drawers dedicated to her flour and sourdough starters. Like the glossy cabinets, painted Farrow & Ball’s “Black Blue” and “Hague Blue,” the hand-stenciled, poured-epoxy floor on this side of the room reflects her bohemian spirit. “The kitchen is a theatrical space that allows them to do what they do best,” MacEachern says. “Cooking with family and friends.”
Photo by Tom Olcott
Photo by Tom Olcott
Photo by Tom Olcott
DETAILS
Appliances Sub-Zero refrigerators, refrigerator and freezer drawers, wine refrigerator, and ice maker, and Wolf ovens and range, all Clarke.
Backsplash Artistic Tile “Constellation” natural stone tile,
the Tile Room.
Countertops Soapstone and Carrara marble, both Nantucket Stone.
Paint “Hague Blue” and “Black Blue,” both Farrow & Ball.
CONTRACTORS
Architectural Designer Emeritus
Cabinetry/Pantry Culbertson Woodworking
Contractor Fraker Construction
Decorative Painter Riptide Finishes
Tile Installer ACKFire Studios
Illustration by Marisa Seguin
TIPS
Need to get organized? Here’s how baker and restauranteur Angela Raynor, who co-owns Nantucket’s Boarding House and the Pearl with her husband, Seth, puts her pantry in order.
Show Your Stuff
Keep things in sight by removing door fronts, specifying slide-outs, and using lazy Susans in corners. Raynor loves the walnut ones from Food52 for oils and vinegars.
Classify Creatively
Group like things together to provide opportunity for creativity and assist with substitutions. “No date syrup? I’ll grab molasses instead,” Raynor says. Spices are grouped by flavor profiles instead of alphabetically.
Waste Not, Want Not
For items without expiration dates, use a Sharpie to mark them with the purchase date. “I’m a huge [condiment] collector,” Raynor says. But it’s important to use them in time, she adds.
Prep Like a Pro
Gather ingredients on a sheet pan and record what’s missing in a notebook. “I read my recipe three times and make a list,” Raynor says. “I carry everything out of the pantry at once, and know if I need to go to the store.”
Salvage the Scraps
Don’t put a bag with 15 chocolate chips back on the shelf. Instead, take cues from Raynor by putting the last bits in a bowl to repurpose in candy, snacks, or ice cream. “If I see a bag on a shelf, I know I probably have enough for a recipe,” she says.
