The kitchen has long been heralded as the heart of the home—a place where meals are prepared, stories are shared, dramas unfold, and memories are made. The same holds true in film and television, where kitchens serve as more than mere backdrops: They become characters in themselves, bringing people together, shaping the narrative, and breathing life into the story.
From Nancy Meyers’s beloved open kitchens to the orderly, century-old sculleries of Downton Abbey and The Gilded Age to the status appliances in And Just Like That…, talented production designers and set decorators have created some of the most aspirational and inspirational spaces. Join us in a look at some of our favorite on-screen kitchens—you’re sure to pick up some real-life design inspiration.
And Just Like That…
Lisa Todd Wexley, played by Nicole Ari Parker and her husband Herbert, played by Christopher Jackson live in an enviable Upper East Side apartment in And Just Like That..., featuring a sleek wood and brass-accented kitchen with a showstopping coffee station.
Courtesy of HBO MaxHomes compete with the couture fashions for attention in HBO Max’s Sex and the City spin-off And Just Like That…, now in its third (and final) season. Lately, we’ve been taking note of Lisa Todd Wexley’s (played by Nicole Ari Parker) open-plan Upper East Side kitchen. To convey understated glam, production designer Miguel Lopez-Castillo and set decorator Karen Wiesel Holmes employed a warm tonal palette with wood cabinetry that’s stained an unexpected lavender-infused hue. The kitchen island anchors the space with a veined quartzite top, brass and teak base, and plummy rose strié velvet stools with brass bases.
The centerpiece is a bells-and-whistles Miele coffee station with gold-toned doors that echo the brass backsplash, surrounded by backlit shelves for coffee and mugs—including a set from Sheila Bridges’s Harlem Toile collection.
Something’s Gotta Give
The kitchen that started it all: Nancy Meyers developed her oft-copied aesthetic of white, glass-fronted cabinets, dark soapstone counters, and open shelves and counters clustered with oils and vinegars, cookbooks and utensils in the Hamptons kitchen in Something’s Gotta Give.
Courtesy of Columbia Pictures/Warner Bros.The 2003 film Something’s Gotta Give cemented Nancy Meyers’s reputation as a director whose talent for creating character-driven romantic comedies is matched only by her impeccable taste in interior design. Production designer Jon Hutman and set decorator Beth Rubino worked closely with Meyers to craft the ideal Hamptons beach house for Erica Barry (Diane Keaton), a successful, 50-something screenwriter with polished style, an independent streak (the house was the ultimate post-divorce gift to herself), and penchant for organization. While the house’s exteriors were shot on Meadow Lane in Southampton, the interiors were built on a Hollywood studio backlot. (Fun fact: Rubino sprayed sunscreen throughout the set to evoke a convincingly beachy aura for the actors!)
Erica’s now-famous kitchen was inspired by Meyers’s own. With its white Shaker-style cabinets, dark soapstone counters, white subway tile backsplash, glass-fronted cabinets filled with curated collections of creamy pottery, and a farmhouse sink (not to mention exquisite ocean views), the space came to define Hamptons shingle-style charm—and inspired countless imitators.
The Gilded Age
The Van Rijn family's downstairs kitchen and scullery in The Gilded Age have an appealing mix of clean, well-organized spaces and period details such as elegant brass lighting, long farmhouse tables, copper pots, and stoneware crockery.
Courtesy of HBO MaxIn the grand estates and townhouses of the late-19th-century upper class, the contrast between the elegant decor upstairs and the simplicity of the servants’ quarters and utilitarian kitchens downstairs is marked—but those long wooden worktables and gleaming copper pots actually have even more appeal today.
For the Upper East Side servants’ kitchen of the fictitious Van Rijn family on HBO’s The Gilded Age, set decorator Regina Graves drew inspiration from another period drama, Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence. Attention to detail was paramount: Graves sourced an antique Spears hotel range with a custom-made hood and water heater to anchor the space. The servants’ quarters were designed in the Victorian style, but “layered with beautiful crockery, copper pots and lots of spices. I love the warmth the basement exudes,” Graves says. “It is my favorite set in the entire series.”
It’s Complicated
For a lead character who’s a professional baker, the Nancy Meyers aesthetic becomes even more layered in It’s Complicated, with open shelving lined with white pottery, counters filled with appliances and accoutrements, a pot rack above the range, and an island with a lower shelf stacked with cookware.
Courtesy of Universal PicturesIn It’s Complicated, Meryl Streep plays Jane Adler, a divorced bakery owner and empty nester who decides to renovate her 1920s Spanish-style bungalow in Santa Barbara. “Since more than half of the movie takes place in the house, we really get to know the place,” Meyers told Traditional Home ahead of the film’s release, noting, “What the characters wear and how they live and decorate really say something about them.”
The design duo of Hutman and Rubino returned for another collaboration, creating an enviable open kitchen features a big marble-topped island (perfect for a baker), Meyers’s signature open shelving and pot racks, galvanized pendant lights, rustic floor tile, and skirted under-counter storage. In a moment of “method design,” Streep requested a water stain on the kitchen ceiling be added—something never shown on the screen—because it was part of the character’s motivation for the renovation. We never get to see the finished redesign in the film, so we’re hoping for a sequel!
Only Murders in the Building
Vibrant colors, a geometric wood-tiled floor from Mirth Studios, and midcentury lighting and art are meant to evoke a character (played by Steve Martin) who decorated his kitchen in the 1990s, when he was a successful TV star.
Courtesy of 20th Television/HuluIn Hulu’s Upper West Side–set whodunit series Only Murders in the Building, former TV star Charles Haden-Savage (Steve Martin) boasts a kitchen as colorful as his character. Conceived by production designer Curt Beech and set decorator Rich Murray—whose work earned the pair a Primetime Emmy for Best Production Design—the vibrant emerald-green and orange space can’t help but catch your eye.
The designers, instructed to decorate the apartment as if it “was ripped out of the pages of Architectural Digest in the ’90s,” upped the ante with details like geometric flooring (the wood tile is from Mirth Studio) and gold detailing on the cabinets. Other retro touches include a black-and-brass midcentury chandelier, bold orange-and-black patterned wallpaper, a framed quartet of 1960s album covers by Josef Albers, and a rare pair of 1960s Hans-Agne Jakobsson pole sconces. Distinctive Ed Ruscha word art also hangs in the kitchen, a graphic choice that reflects Charles’s quirky sensibility and the room’s color palette (and perhaps even nods to the fact that Steve Martin is a serious art collector in real life).
The Holiday
Perennial Christmas favorite The Holiday features two very different women who swap houses—and two dramatically different Nancy Meyers dream kitchens. (Good news for Holiday-lovers: An Apple TV+ limited series based on the movie is currently in development.)
Cameron Diaz’s Los Angeles kitchen is vast in scale, with a spacious island and dining table, a commercial range, oversized lanterns, and sleek ebonized cabinets.
Courtesy of Columbia Pictures/Universal PicturesAmanda (Cameron Diaz), a film trailer editor, lives in a sleek, Wallace Neff–designed home in L.A. with a kitchen that feels more like a showcase than a space actually used for cooking. The modern space is outfitted with sleek custom cabinetry, stainless steel appliances, stone countertops, and a sprawling wood island, mirroring her fast-paced, well-ordered life. Meyers and production designer Jon Hutman drew inspiration from Dutch florist-turned-interior designer Marcel Wolterinck’s book IN/EX in conceiving the elegant-yet-youthful house, which employs natural materials for a clean-lined California aesthetic.
For the charming Surrey cottage kitchen belonging to Kate Winslet’s character in The Holiday, soft blue cabinets, Nancy Meyers’s signature open shelves with white pottery, and a truly tiny stove create homespun charm.
Courtesy of Columbia Pictures/Universal PicturesAcross the pond, Iris (Kate Winslet) lives in a cozy cottage in Surrey, England, called Rosehill. The charming country kitchen features beamed ceilings, soft blue cabinets with painted wooden knobs, open shelves filled with mismatched pottery, old-fashioned appliances, floral curtains, and a classic farmhouse sink, evoking English warmth and charm, much like Iris herself.
Julia
The kitchen in Julia closely follows Julia Child’s own (welcoming, functional, and decidedly non-designer) kitchen in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with tall butcher-block counters to suit Child’s 6'2" height, blue cabinets, pegboards to keep pots and pans within each reach, and a central table.
Courtesy of HBO/Lionsgate TelevisionThe HBO Max original series Julia chronicles the famed chef Julia Child’s (Sarah Lancashire) early days as a local Boston television personality who ultimately becomes the star of her own show, The French Chef. Academy Award-winning production designer Patrizia von Brandenstein meticulously recreated the sets, beginning with a visit to the Smithsonian to study Child’s own original kitchen. Research was essential in designing the early 1960s Cambridge, Massachusetts, kitchen; the team looked to Child’s photos and recipes for guidance, sourcing a vintage stove, copper cookware, and coffeemakers from the period.
The highly functional kitchen includes pegboards for keeping pots and pans readily at hand (each outlined in black marker for easy rehanging), magnetic knife strips, and a Garland restaurant stove like the one that Child used for decades. Today, Julia Child aficionados can still view her kitchen—right down to the extra-tall maple countertops built to suit her 6’3″ height—at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
The Intern
The tall, airy Brooklyn brownstone kitchen in The Intern is grounded by gray cabinetry and moldings contrasted with marble counters, glossy white subway tile, and light wood shelving lined with pottery and pantry staples.
Courtesy of Warner Bros. PicturesWhile most Nancy Meyers productions are shot on stage sets, her 2015 film The Intern, which stars Anne Hathaway as fashion e-commerce exec Jules Ostin, was shot mostly on location in New York. Jules’s home is a covetable brownstone in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn (standing in for Park Slope) with original moldings, inlaid wood floors, and marble fireplace mantels.
Production designer Kristi Zea and set decorator Susan Bode channeled an urban industrial–meets-country aesthetic in the kitchen. High ceilings and walls of gleaming white subway tile set an airy backdrop for light-wood open shelving atop iron brackets, slate-gray cabinets with nickel bin pulls, oversize pendant lights, and honed marble countertops. An arched niche showcases a sleek stainless-steel oven hood.
