Food Arts

Five Top Kitchen Designers Zero in on the Whys and Wherefores of Their Latest Projects. 

“At the same time that he was working at the high end of Italian cookery at Lincoln, Jimi Yui was creating the kitchens—the many kitchens—for Oscar Farinetti, Mario Batali, Joe Bastianich, and Lidia Matticchio Bastianich's mega-Italian market, Eataly—a duality of projects that could have left him with a case of aesthetic whiplash, except that he was having so much fun doing both. 

[According to Yui,] ‘Eataly is a totally innovative business, a grocery store mixed with full-blown restaurants, each existing on its own, but under one roof. 

And we had a massive space to work with…‘There are five different restaurants, each with its own individual kitchen. There's La Piazza, Il Pesce, Le Verdure, La Pizza & Pasta, and a café—all of which sit on top of a downstairs production kitchen. The excitement and the chaos are amazing. We finished Eataly and Lincoln at the same time. 

We had the virtue of seeing the contrast. Such different objects in space. Such different experiences.’”