We ve been following chef David Tanis over the years and wondering how he pulls it all off after heading up the kitchen at Chez Panisse he made an arrangement with Alice Waters that allowed him to work...
Photography and styling by Heidi’s Bridge for Remodelista.
...half time in the Berkeley California restaurant and live half time in Paris where he ran an under the radar supper club called Aux Chiens Lunatiques with Randal Breski his partner the former maître d at Chez Panisse
A set of steps descends to the apartment’s entry, which opens directly onto the kitchen. David Tanis: The two rooms are 20-by-20-foot each, so there’s room for guests to gather in the kitchen for drinks, although we usually dine in our main room, what we call the West Wing, for dinner parties.
Is that for covering up cooking smells?
The island on wheels is from Crate & Barrel; David and Randal added a cantilevered butcher block top to extend the work surface. Living with a small, under-counter fridge was really no problem except when we had t0 store food for big parties, in which case we used a large picnic cooler.
David and Randal slotted in four stacked Ikea cabinets in a recessed corner of the kitchen for additional storage.
A freestanding vintage Ethan Allen dresser painted black serves as a storage place for spices, linens, and more. DT: It’s also where I go for Asian ingredients—Chinatown is a ten-minute walk.
David stores his spices in jars arrayed upside-down in the dresser’s top drawer.
David stores mixing bowls and cutting boards on an industrial-style stainless steel restaurant cart with butcher block top and cooks on an NXR 30-Inch Professional Range ($1,899).
David and Randal maximized the space at the far end of the kitchen; under the counter is a refrigerator with a dishwasher slotted in next to it.
“At one point we were using a vintage porcelain mortuary table as a kitchen island.”
David and Randal keep their sink setup simple: Dishwashing liquid is decanted into an amber glass pump bottle (for something similar, consider the eight-ounce Amber Glass Soap Dispenser with Black Pump ($5.99 from Amazon), the palm fiber Kamenoko Tawashi Kitchen Scrubbing Brush ($7) is from Japan.
An array of low-tech tools: the double egg spoon is by Sicilian master blacksmith Angelo Garro of Renaissance Forge in San Francisco (see the single version at The Legendary Egg Spoon of Alice Waters and Fanny Singer, Easter Edition).
Proof you don’t need an arsenal of high-tech countertop appliances and gadgets: David’s lineup of old-fashioned kitchen implements includes a stainless steel Stovetop Toaster, his grandmother’s potato masher, a Rok Presso Manual Maker, a wooden-handled whisk, and a vintage marble mortar and pestle.
A Japanese tansu chest holds additional tableware and jars of home-pickled vegetables.
David stores paper towels on a vintage brass meat pounder.
A glass beaker holds garlic from the farmers market.
“We built the bookcases out of cinder blocks and lengths of wood boards,” David says.
David’s latest: David Tanis Market Cooking.