Julia Child was one of the most celebrated celebrity chefs of the 20th century, so it makes sense that she’d have an impressive kitchen. And the plans for her 1961 kitchen in Cambridge, Massachusetts, show just how amazing it was:
This is Julia Child’s kitchen. See why it’s perfect.
Phil Edwards was a senior producer for the Vox video team.
Julia Child's kitchen was better than yours.
The drawing is part of the National Museum of American History’s special exhibit on food, which also includes a reconstruction of the kitchen itself. Some key features:
- Three pantries. Ample storage ensured she’d never be short of the perfect thing to finish a meal.
- High counters. They were specially designed to accommodate Julia’s 6-foot-2 height. Counter height had been a concern in Paris, where Child famously towered over her workspace.
- Pegboards. Julia loved to display her cookware publicly, which was avant-garde in the ‘60s. If you look closely, you can see that each pan’s shape is outlined on the pegboard itself. This helped her organize everything and find what she needed quickly.
Child in 1997, with her pans and pots proudly displayed.
She had a similar strategy for knives:
Julia Child's hanging knives.
- Professional-grade Garland gas stove. And, for good measure, a griddle:
Julia Child's stove was impressive.
Even if you don’t have a Julia Child–style budget, you can learn from her organization: she knew where every pot and pan was, and that was more important than the aesthetic weirdness of having her kitchen covered in pegboards.
Will organization make you as good a cook as Julia Child? Probably not. But it will at least make cleaning up a little easier.
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