Vintage View: The renaissance of the kitchen pantry

With the right boxes, jars, baskets and bins, the larder can come out into the light

With the right boxes, jars, baskets and bins, the larder can come out into the light with open modular shelving. This arrangement is staged out of direct light that might over-heat the produce. Omar shelves, 2-sections €172, ikea.ie

Larders and pantry rooms are enjoying a tasty renaissance at the moment, as wall-hung cupboards are pried off to free up sightlines and anchor the kitchen more firmly to the floor. An anti-kitchen kitchen speaks of bespoke furniture that segues beautifully into neighbouring open-plan areas. There’s no aesthetic culinary/living room speed-bump signalled by a standard suspended cabinet.

The larder cupboard is the stately survivor of this attack on high cabinetry, a comprehensive storage solution that’s four to five hundred years old and focused on the cool preservation of dry goods. Poking its head to the top of the terrace, the better larder cupboard can handle robust perishables if there’s some form of climate control in place to dip the temperature, ventilate the unit or room, and to effectively seal off the door to maintain energy efficiency.

Neptune Ardingly Cabinet with shelf, prices from €2,230. Olive Emulsion, €49 per litre, netpune.com.

The popularity of larder and pantry rooms, dipped with the introduction of affordable fridges and freezers after WWII, when cold stores and the American fruit cellar were largely relegated to the history books. Larders were expected to be cold enough to handle meat, butter and eggs for limited periods, while pantry rooms were dedicated to shelving and hanging fordry, tinned and bottled goods in the main.

Today, the larder is holding ground as a well-loved classic in the most contemporary kitchen. It’s the dominant cabinet in the space at least and in some kitchens a step between the tinned food press and full refrigeration. Setting a stand-alone or partially built-in timber larder in a stark, scintillating German slab kitchen is an acceptable, character injecting vernacular. A bold colour is really essential for the larder to make its mark.

Keep in mind, a larder unit does not have to be present in the kitchen at all. It can sit in an adjoining corridor or utility room as built-in or free-standing furniture. This immediately lifts some cubic litres of storage weight off a smaller kitchen area. Look for cabinets synched in for depths of 50cm that won’t interfere with passing room where needed. Sliding or tambour doors can further slim a waist.

Larder or pantry, enclosed behind doors or staged in an independent room, pay attention to the quality of the shelving. Deeper shelves can take a fuller load, but watch any bracket positions weigh in. Accessories by Dunhelm.

For executive-level homes – the dressing-room upstairs is joined by the other backstage essential for entertaining downstairs. It’s a fully detailed walk-in pantry room, ventilated and cooled, and a perfect spot for cellar style wine-keeping and dining-ware – dishes and glassware in particular. It’s a handy spot in the centre of the house as it can be windowless, and in fact the lack of UV light will help goods keep longer, including protecting their colour. Half glazed double doors leading into the pantry off the kitchen, a nostalgic touch.

The trick is to detail this kind of commitment to suit you perfectly. If you’re a pastry chef for example, having a cool length of marble work-top in your pantry room is ideal for rolling and pie thumping. The quality of the shelving will be crucial in a pantry room, and if you’re happy leaving modular shelving on show on say one wall of the laundry room — check your vermin defences are in place and everything is screwed into boxes and jars.

A dream two-door (linen press style) larder cupboard in spicey orange sits in the recess of a traditional country kitchen holding cans and long storage style condiments. For perishable foodstuffs, choose a cooler, darker situation, Harvey Jones (UK).

That said, with a traditionally tall profile taken right to the ceiling and coronated in crown moulding — the modest profile of a shelved larder in the kitchen with some moving elements to reach right to the high and back contents offers superb ergonomics. Larders and pantries have become hybrid inclusions offering the best of both worlds. It’s possible to include a chilled, slide-out granite or marble surface in a larder cupboard for food prep’ duty as needed.

Sizes are comparable to a good mid-sized American fridge/freezer in terms of standing room and the swing of the door, and your larder can be as present or integrated as you like. With star pantries in moulded wood elements, we can do French-style double-doors over single or double drawers below (reminiscent of the linen press on which many classic wood pantries are based). The inside of the doors will generally be detailed for bottles, jars and other smaller pieces.

Up-cycle cheat? Look for a large stable wardrobe or linen press for interior detailing and a lick of Farrow & Ball eggshell.

The so-called breakfast-dresser is another period-inspired option. It’s based on a dresser form of shelves over a wider, bosomy cabinet with a worktop, as a larder solution.

Harvey Jones in the UK are known for their breakfast dresser designs — so take an online odyssey for some bite-sized notions you could knock up from a reclaimed piece or doodle up with a talented carpenter.

Doors over the shelves of the breakfast dresser can be blind or use glazing. Look for bi-fold doors for larger dresser styles that can be taken back to reveal everything on offer on the shelving, allowing you to slip it down to the counter with ease.

Massive base drawers can carry pegs for dishes. Radically styled, free-standing 50s dressers now go for a mint – so don’t pass by those rockabilly starry Formica topped, chrome-belted beauties second-hand.

19th-century pine cold-lockers, with pierced metal panels and sometimes a chicken coop in the base are neatly replicated in small larder cupboards on legs, including the beautiful Ardingly from Neptune. Prices from €2,230, neptune.com.

Lotto win? MIA in the Carlo Cracco kitchen collection from Scavolini is designed in collaboration with Italian chef Carlo Cracco. Storage includes larder units with folding, glass-fronted doors with aluminium frames; from €15,000, vitaitaliana.ie.

The handle-free kitchen can hide the pantry as a towering monobloc, with articulated moving baskets, spice, box and wine racks (whatever you fancy) behind tall blind, bump-operated doors that won’t betray your linear loves.

Generous larders can include a nice void for clunky thugs like the Kitchen Aide that’s otherwise littering up the counters. Start with a 60cm unit with bi-fold doors for a smaller kitchen. What lifts a standard tall cupboard to larder level is timber lining: a mark of sheer quality every time you reach in for the smoked paprika.