Bestselling cookbook author and TV host Greta Podleski knows a thing or two about making masterpieces from scratch. Her passion for all things culinary and time spent working in her kitchen were the perfect building blocks for designing a dream space that’s as unique and appetizing as the recipes she creates. Here, she shares her tips for revamping a kitchen with efficiency, function and beauty as its main ingredients.


Meet Greta Podleski
“I couldn’t justify tearing out a perfectly good kitchen to build a new one unless I knew that someone else would use it,” says Greta, so she sold it, along with her old appliances, online.

Find out Greta's 10 tips on creating an idyllic kitchen in your home.

Kitchen lighting
With an array of pot lights, pendant lights, under- and interior-cabinet lighting, homeowner Greta Podleski’s kitchen shines in all the right places. She’s especially smitten with the polished-nickel pendants over the island. “They remind me of beehives, which tie into my honeycomb backsplash,” says Greta.

Kitchen seating
Besides a dining area with more formal seating, three padded bar stools around the island invite guests to take a seat while Greta is at work. The white leather seats and sturdy chrome legs give the space a relaxed, restaurant feel.

Kitchen countertop
The nonporous, virtually indestructible countertop on the island is a low-maintenance feature in this busy kitchen that gets lots of wear, as does the durable dark hickory flooring – especially when Greta’s dog, Rico, comes running for his treats.

L-shaped kitchen island
Cooking from scratch requires lots of room for slicing, dicing, mixing and measuring, which is why Greta’s kitchen features a nine-by-seven-foot L-shaped island – almost half of it is set aside for preparing meals.
Wine cooler
Greta chose a stunning Thermador wine cooler to mirror the large Viking refrigerator that stands at the other end of the continuous cabinetry and to provide symmetry to the space. “I guess I should probably buy some wine for it one of these days – it’s mostly stocked with lemon Perrier. Sad, I know.”

An elegant kitchen island
Because of the open-concept layout on the main floor, Greta designed her kitchen island to look like a piece of furniture by placing it on elegant, dark wooden legs. She cleverly had the section of the island that faces the dining room fitted with drawers and crystal knobs to mimic a sideboard.
Considering how a kitchen functions
A design can’t be functional without, well, considering how it functions. “I literally stood in the kitchen and thought, ‘What would I do when making a meal?’” says Greta. She mapped out details like the number of steps she’d need to grab a pot, the best spot for the slide-out garbage and the perfect drawer to store all of her spices.

Open shelves
A large, deep shelf above the small appliances gives easy access to coffee cups and plates. It also breaks up the monotony of cupboards, allowing the honeycomb-patterned marble kitchen backsplash to shine through.

Six-burner range
“I wanted my six-burner, dual-fuel Viking range to be the star of the show, so it’s on the most visible wall in my kitchen,” she says. It was the starting point in creating a functional work triangle, which was completed by positioning the large fridge on the opposite wall and the sink in the central island.

Get the look: Chic transitional

• Streamlined cabinet silhouettes with traditional hardware.
• Polished-nickel and chrome fixtures and accents to add sparkle and shine.
• Honeycomb-patterned backsplash tiles instead of subway tiles or marble slabs.
• Dark wooden pieces to ground the all-white room.
• Frosted-glass door fronts and open shelving in the kitchen cabinetry mix.