A pot filler tap seen above the hob in an Instagram appearance by the Duchess of Sussex this week has drawn attention to a broader change in the domestic kitchen: the growing demand for equipment borrowed from professional restaurants.
Meghan, who is not an ordinary home cook, was shown at a hob fitted with the specialist tap. Such fixtures are now most often installed in luxury homes, though the device was reportedly created in the early 20th century as a practical fitting for commercial kitchens.
It belongs to a wider group of restaurant staples that have crossed into residential use, among them squeezy olive oil bottles and sets of stainless steel mixing bowls.
At Sous Chef, an independent UK speciality food brand, sales of chef presses have risen by 26%, while chef’s trays are selling strongly, according to the company’s food editor, Holly Thomson.
Ella Risbridger, author of The Kitchen Book: Good Food for Every Day, described the blurring of the line between restaurant and home kitchens as remarkable. She attributed it to the growing visibility of professional chefs, whether through open kitchens in restaurants or ‘chefluencers’ on social media, which has made the practicality and gadgets of commercial kitchens aspirational.
In a home tour with Architectural Digest this week, Julianne Moore showed off industrial shelving from Ikea.
Risbridger said people can now watch what happens inside professional kitchens, and suggested that platforms track viewing of shows such as The Bear or ‘cheffy’ Instagram accounts and use that data to recommend products. She noted that items from the white T-shirt to the Japanese Hasegawa chopping board allow home cooks to emulate television chefs Carmy and Syd when preparing a midweek dinner.
Thomson linked the trend to the economic climate, describing a mindset in which consumers decide against spending about £90 on a restaurant meal but are willing to put money into products that help them take eating at home more seriously.
James Lawless, a spokesperson at David Mellor, traced the shift to the pandemic, which he said reignited interest in home cooking. He said professional chefs’ equipment may serve specialist functions but is not itself special, describing such items first and foremost as tools built to perform a particular task.
Thomson characterised them as extra pieces of kit that add ease or finesse, or that streamline a process. She noted that in a professional kitchen nothing occupies space unless it is fully useful, used daily and multi-purpose.
What one person finds useful, another may regard as wasted space. Helen Parker, creative director of deVOL Kitchens, said that while a pot filler tap may be unnecessary in an ordinary small kitchen, it has become the must-have addition to a larger one.
Thomson pointed to the squeezy olive oil bottle as evidence that the trend is not only about costly equipment. Priced at a few pounds, it offers useful precision, she said, adding that once a cook has tried it, decanting oil by pouring from a bottle no longer compares.
For Risbridger, the appeal lies in buying something nice for a hobby, which she described as a shortcut to taking yourself more seriously. She said affordable versions of professional tools make users feel more like professionals, which builds confidence and improves the food they produce, with or without the gadget.
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