His kitchens are regarded as works of art, and now Johnny Grey designs are in demand in Ireland, despite a starting price of €65,000. Bernice Harrison meets the master of the curvy cupboard.
As a keen cook, John Mulcahy was determined that when he and his wife Christine built an extension to their Dublin semi-d and had the chance to install a new kitchen, they'd get it right. Christine, an accountant, thought that as John does all the cooking, he should choose the equipment. And although they have ended up with the sort of kitchen that features in interiors magazine, neither of them has any particular interest in design.
"We just knew, from looking at what was out there, that we didn't want anonymous modular units with acres of granite worktop," Christine says. "I wanted a sense of order and I wanted to feel comfortable in the space," adds John, a Fáilte Ireland executive who is more inclined to have a cookbook than a copy of Wallpaper* magazine as bedside reading.
John attended a day-long kitchen design course given by British designer Johnny Grey, and it informed the way he started to think about what he wanted. Grey, who works on projects all over the world, has a very specific design philosophy that has earned him such plaudits from design magazines as "the kitchen designer's designer" and "world's best kitchen designer" for his innovative work. (He's modest enough to blush about that last one.)
Grey's kitchens are all one-offs, characterised by what he calls soft geometry; curvy lines in cupboards and work surfaces. There are designated task areas reflected in the materials used; purpose-built and unusually finished cabinets; and an emphasis on aesthetics and imagination - but not at the expense of practicality. There's no standard price, because his studio doesn't produce a standard kitchen, but the starting price is around €65,000 for custom-made units (this one had already been built).
The Mulcahys' extension was already built and a conventional kitchen area planned for along one wall. But then John became keen on Grey's idea that the kitchen should function as a sociable hub in the home. A feature of nearly all Grey's work is that the hob is positioned in such a way that the cook can work while facing the action in the room. "That's the really exciting thing about what we have ended up with," John Mulcahy says about the striking circular kitchen that now sits in their airy extension.
"We have two boys, and in the evening when we're in from work or school, they're over on the sofa and we can all chat while I'm cooking here. We missed all that when we had the old galley arrangement."
The Mulcahy kitchen is made up of two free-standing semi-circles on elegant steel legs. One has a granite draining area, a sink and two dishwashers. The other, topped with stainless steel, has the hob, oven, a cupboard for small electrical appliances, and storage for pots and pans underneath and hanging overhead. The materials used include walnut, maple, maccasser ebony and glass. It takes a while to notice it, but one corner of the room is now a curved wall with a door in it - painted the same colour as the wall - that opens into a large pantry and storage area. This is a neat trick that could be easily copied.
Grey, a trained architect, learned much of his kitchen design philosophy from his aunt, the food writer Elizabeth David. "She was enormously practical, there was nothing in her kitchen that didn't have a function," he says, sitting in the Mulcahys' kitchen. He is here to discuss a commission from another Dublin client, and to visit the Mulcahys, who want more cupboards.
He has the appearance and demeanour of a slightly distracted academic and he's as likely to talk about ergonomics and theory as the virtues of a 600mm unit over a 400mm one. "I don't think there's enough fun in kitchen design. Why are they all so slick?" - although in truth this kitchen, with its stainless steel, is far more slick and industrial looking than many of his designs.
Unusually, John Mulcahy bought his kitchen "off-the-peg". It was originally made for a design exhibition and he spotted it while he was checking out Grey's website and day-dreaming of commissioning the designer. Several trips back and forth to Grey's Sussex studio and between them they figured out how it could work in the new extension. Christine admits that when she first walked in and saw the two semi-circles upside down, their steel legs poking up, she wondered what on earth John had bought. "I don't think that anymore," she says.
• www.johnnygrey.co.uk