15 Top Kitchen Design Tips from Ina Garten

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Anyone even tangentially involved in cooking will have heard of Ina Garten, aka the Barefoot Contessa, aka the star who made it easy and accessible for anyone to cook delicious meals. Garten is famous for her approachable take on cuisine, well-suited for even the busiest households to take on. We’re all well-versed in her plethora of cooking tips by now, so today we figured it was high time to consult the chef on her top tips for designing kitchen spaces.

Having a functional, aesthetically pleasing kitchen can go a long way in making the process of cooking more pleasurable. Nobody likes navigating around clutter when they’re just trying to get dinner ready, and having a set of matching cookware at the ready might even make you want to take on more complex recipes. Perhaps best of all, Garten’s kitchen design tips are universal enough to accommodate any personal style, so you won’t have to sacrifice your kitchen’s character to incorporate her tips. So, take a brief break from perusing your vast collection of Barefoot Contessa cookbooks and spend some time refining your kitchen instead. 

Something you’ll notice time and time again about Ina Garten’s kitchen design is that it flawlessly combines purpose and eye-pleasing appeal. Perhaps the best example of this is in the first tip we’re mentioning from the chef: keeping a bowl of citrus fruits on your counter. Lemons in particular are well-suited for the countertop. Not only are they visually appealing — does anything give an aura of freshness better than the bright yellow fruit? — but they’re also a staple in many cuisines, and they’re best used at room temperature.

Garten offers up this particular tip in her book “Cook Like A Pro.” Her reasons for keeping lemons out are numerous. Sure, they contribute to a good kitchen design, but having them constantly visible can also serve as flavorful inspiration for finishing touches. We don’t know about you, but when we keep lemons in the fridge, we’ll all too often forget they’re there — out of sight, out of mind. Beyond that, Garten also says you get the most juice out of lemons at room temperature, so it makes more practical sense to keep them on your counter, too. Have a stack within arm’s reach for whenever you need to whip up a tangy vinaigrette or garnish a pasta salad. 

It’s nice to think that this tip would be pretty self-evident, but it’s too easy to overload your counters with single-use kitchen gadgets and constantly be looking for space for your new fancy tool. Ina Garten advocates for simplicity in the kitchen above all else. She discusses her own kitchen design in an interview with House Beautiful, and throughout the brief conversation, you’ll hear constant references to simple functionality. 

Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean minimalism in Ina’s book. Rather, her interviewer puts Garten’s philosophy succinctly: “You only have what you use and you use what you really have.” So, yes, Garten does have a plethora of kitchen tools, but she organizes them via her double crock method, separating them by material. This is an eye-pleasing, organized way to achieve a streamlined kitchen aesthetic that also doesn’t advocate for getting rid of tools you need — and, if you’re a frequent home cook, your tools may be plentiful. Keep what you need and use what you have, with simplicity and functionality at the forefront of your design and organizational systems. 

The kitchen is often called the heart of the home, which we think is a fitting sentiment — after all, it’s the source of nourishment for your family and guests, a life-sustaining space. When Ina Garten has guests over, it’s rare to see them congregate in the living room. Rather, the kitchen is the social center of Garten’s home, and to that end, it makes sense to make the kitchen habitable for a crowd. 

Garten has a large table in her kitchen, and for her, it’s a very purposeful addition. She’s sought to curate a space that her guests want to spend time in, and a standing-room-only kitchen isn’t always the most inviting space. Sure, a large kitchen table is an obvious must-have for eating around, but it shouldn’t just be a place where mealtimes are enjoyed — instead, view your table as a gathering space, something that will invite whomever you may host to take a seat and stay a while. 

It may seem antithetical to the clean-and-simple design aesthetic we’ve talked about a bit, but trust us on this one (or, rather, trust Ina Garten). Despite advocating for a no-fuss functionality in her kitchen, Garten admits to frequently having tools and appliances out and at the ready — in fact, she never relegates her KitchenAid stand mixer to the cupboard. Before you worry about this leading to a cluttered aesthetic, Garten has a game-changing tip.

How does she maintain a streamlined look without hiding appliances behind cabinet doors? Her answer is simple: Make everything match. All Garten’s favorite appliances are stainless steel and/or white. This might mean making some sacrifices — sure, you love that mint green mixer that just popped up in your Instagram ads, but unless you can make everything else match, it could lead to a busy-looking space. When shopping for appliances, stick to the classic colors and finishes for a space that’s both chic and functional; you’ll definitely appreciate it in the long run. 

Want your kitchen to be easy to navigate and pleasurable for anyone to create in? Ina Garten has one tip that you may not have heard of before, and it’s one you’ll want to keep in mind, particularly if you’re doing a full kitchen redesign. As it turns out, the placement of your kitchen mainstays can make or break your kitchen’s design; though it’s easy enough to adopt a “put it where it fits” mentality, being intentional here can make all the difference.

In an interview with Today, Garten let viewers in on a little design secret, saying, “When I’m designing a kitchen … I think of setting the stove, the sink, and refrigerator in a triangle so you can move around really well.” She goes on to tell viewers not to keep the appliances far apart from one another, but to have some ample workspace in between them. Adopting this functional design method will make your cooking process more seamless, both for you and for whoever may be helping you out in the kitchen. It can help cut down on traffic jams when there are multiple cooks at work, and it keeps everything constantly accessible and within reach — soon enough, you’ll be wondering how you ever operated in differently designed spaces. 

Sure, this next tip from our favorite chef isn’t a necessity, per se — however, it can make doing menial kitchen chores (washing dishes in particular) immensely more enjoyable. If you can swing it, take a leaf from Ina Garten’s book and make the view from your sink Instagram-worthy. Personally, having a stunning landscape in constant sight would have us coming up with excuses to wash and re-wash that stockpot.

“I always like the sink to have a really nice view,” Garten told Today. Garten loves how her own kitchen sink looks out onto her back garden, but her sink also boasts a good view of her space’s interior, too. Rather than being positioned directly in front of a window, Garten’s sink is in her kitchen island immediately across from the massive dining room table. The placement makes it easy to remain involved in the social action even while cleaning up. When you’re working solo, gazing beyond the table into an outdoor space offers a serene way to get those dishes done. 

Sure, your pantry is probably kept safely out of sight behind closed doors, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be an eyesore. Rather than having a conglomeration of mismatched bags and boxes cluttering your shelves, Ina Garten recommends storing your staple pantry goods in glass canisters. Garten in particular does this with her flour and sugar, a wise decision both in terms of aesthetic appeal and to keep pests out of your dry goods.

Personally, we find a lot of merit in storing your shelf-stable goods in glass jars beyond the aesthetic appeal. Getting rid of the visual clutter will make it easier to find whatever you may need to get your hands on. Have you ever bought a new bag of baking soda only to find a half-used one in the back of your pantry a week later? Having a designated glass jar that holds your baking soda can help eliminate that problem. 

Dinnerware can play a key role in the design of your kitchen, particularly if you house yours on open shelves where they’re always in sight. In this respect, Ina Garten harkens back to her tip about curating a collection of simple, matching appliances — she advocates for simplistic and elegant dinnerware. Complex or overly-patterned plates and bowls can draw too much attention away from your otherwise streamlined kitchen design.

Plus, having simple dishes will have an even more positive effect on the visuals when you’re serving food. According to Garten, a white backdrop simply makes your food look better. A dish that would easily get lost on ornate dinnerware will shine on simple plates. This doesn’t mean your dinnerware has to look boring, though. Opt for elegance — for example, the above white stoneware plate with a speckled black border is stunning in its own right, and will always accentuate your food rather than detracting from it. 

Similar to pantry spaces, the refrigerator is an oft-overlooked opportunity to cultivate aesthetic appeal in your kitchen. It may seem unimportant because, again, the contents of your fridge sit behind closed doors — but if you want to inject a sense of style, order, and stability throughout the entirety of your space, Ina Garten would say you can’t leave out your fridge’s interior. 

As with many tips on this list, the benefits of keeping an orderly refrigerator go beyond the “wow” factor a guest will have when they open its doors. Garten detailed some of her fridge organizing tips in an episode of the Design Time podcast. She said, “If you’re piling things on top of other things on top of other things in the refrigerator, you’re never gonna find it.” Garten’s penchant for fridge organization comes from her experience as a food retailer, paying attention both to how she stores food and where it is in the fridge — her methods optimize the life span of dairy and produce, and she also frequently uses deli containers to keep her fridge neat and tidy. 

We’ve all been there: You haven’t used canola oil in a while, so you buy a new bottle at the store and add it to your pantry collection. Years later, you notice a half-empty bottle of canola oil at the very back of the shelf that’s long since expired. The all-too-infrequent pantry clean-out always sees many unused, out-of-date staples heading straight to the trash, and it’s more than a little frustrating to realize that you had more space in your cabinets than you thought. 

Unsurprisingly, Ina Garten has a solution for this problem, too. It’s simple to implement and will keep your space in tip-top shape. In a 2022 Instagram post, she hashed out the details of her yearly pantry clean-out and gave some organizing tips. She posted, “Every year, I organize my pantry and weed out old oils and baking powder. This year, I got clear plastic containers for all those messy chocolate chip and dried bean packages. It’s easier to see what I already have when I’m making a grocery list!” It’s absolutely okay and understandable if you don’t use all that sesame oil or baking powder before it expires, and doing a yearly purge and refresh will both keep your pantry organized and prevent you from having duplicate ingredients.

Say you’re doing a complete remodel of your kitchen, and you want to draw some heavy inspiration from Ina Garten’s. One thing you’ll notice upon taking a look at the chef’s space is that it offers an airy, breathable aesthetic anyone can feel at home in. Garten’s kitchen is comfortable, warm, and inviting — it exudes a fresh appeal with a clean aesthetic that welcomes in whomever she may have over for lunch.

Aside from the stunning dark Lacanche range, you’ll notice Garten’s kitchen boasts light features and accents. White countertops and cabinetry are, first and foremost, and there’s no doubt this was intentional. White dishes and wicker mats dot the inside of her “dream pantry” while natural accents throughout make the space feel effortlessly calming. This is very much in line with some of Garten’s other kitchen design tips — a cohesive, light, neutral palette makes it easy to create an aesthetically pleasing, cozy space.

Dear home chefs: If there’s one habit you haven’t already adopted that you definitely should, it’s tasting as you go. Having small samples of your sauces and stews as you’re making them will allow you to make subtle adjustments throughout the cooking process, so your dish turns out nothing short of perfect. Ina Garten takes this practice and goes the extra mile with it by keeping cute, antique tasting spoons in a small container on her kitchen counter. 

Garten took NYT Cooking on a tour of her kitchen in 2020, and along the way, she showed off her collection of antique silver spoons. She said, “They’re really inexpensive, and I just put them in a jar and leave them on the counter.” Make yours as simple or as fancy as you like — while aesthetic appeal is certainly part of the equation, the bigger appeal is having spoons at the ready without using your stock of regular soup spoons. Taste and adjust often, and you’ll still always have plenty of spoons to spare. 

Take a gander at Ina Garten’s spice drawer and you’ll only find two dried herbs: oregano and bay leaves. For everything else, Garten prefers using fresh herbs. While she’s lucky enough to have a huge garden with many herbs at her disposal, you can also occasionally see some potted ones on her countertops. The benefits of displaying herbs in your kitchen are twofold: You’ll add a delightful green component to your space, and you’ll have fresh herbs ready to go.

Garten doesn’t have specific recommendations for what herbs to grow indoors; rather, she says that decision can be made based on personal preference. She’s constantly using rosemary, thyme, and basil, which all feature regularly in popular recipes. Simple potted herbs are a simple, fresh addition to any kitchen windowsill, and having them constantly within eyesight will likely inspire even more uses for them. 

There’s certainly merit to having bright, overhead lighting in a kitchen — after all, you certainly need to be able to see crumbs and spills to be able to clean them all. But sometimes, the food’s been cooked, the cleaning is done, and you want to spend your evenings in the kitchen with a nightcap. Overhead lights are too bright, but you obviously don’t want to be in the pitch black. This is where soft table lamps can come in handy.

A brief tour through Garten’s kitchen back in 2009 showed a couple table lamps on display — one on the kitchen island and another on a display table. Having multiple lighting options in your kitchen will allow you to better customize your space to suit different social settings. Use the “big lights” when it’s time to get some work done; then, to go full relaxation mode, switch to gentle table lamps for a moody ambiance.

Last but certainly not least, Ina Garten loves her open shelves. As with all elements in a kitchen, how you design open shelving can make or break your entire kitchen aesthetic and functionality. In many situations, having open shelving is convenient — but if your open shelves aren’t designed well, they can easily be an eyesore.

Garten had a few things to say about her use of open shelving in an interview with Stephen Drucker, editor in chief of House Beautiful. She said, “It’s so much easier … instead of going around the dishwasher, all I have to do is turn and put the dish away.” A look at Garten’s open shelves in the same interview sees them dotted with glass and silver platters and cake stands, along with white dinnerware. This lends itself to a streamlined look (no clutter here!) while maximizing the functionality of her space.