Colin and Justin: Some food for thought
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Your Narnia deep clothes vault is so last year, food storage is where it’s at…
As designers, we’ll take inspiration wherever it lands. This week, for example, whilst visiting the newly launched Waterworks Food Hall in Toronto, we were bowled over by its remarkable larder, a gastronomic offering that buoys with global fodder.
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Aside from the fact there’s currently a huge appetite for markets like this, our visit got us thinking about the way in which we organize our kitchens, especially our larders and our pantries.
Wherever you are, it seems there’s something, of this ilk, for everyone. The bustling First Street Market in Calgary is similarly epic, Le Cathcart in Montreal (an astounding multi restaurant complex) is so worth a visit, and (sorry to accord a venue outside Canada as our favourite, but this place is iconic) The Chelsea Market in NYC’s Meat Packing District, which is widely considered the world’s greatest food hall and eatery.
At any of the foregoing, the repertoire is remarkable, with flavours and ingredients that showcase food at its most delicious. As 2024 draws to a conclusion, what we eat (and how it is stored and displayed) is prioritized (by many, ourselves included) over what we wear.
Menu planning (perhaps more than ever before) revolves around the world’s finest ingredients, as witnessed in the previously described food halls. In turn, a tricked out larder has become the holy grail of chi-chi gastronomes everywhere.
The larder’s ascent, as we see it, was fuelled by the pandemic, but its appeal remains relevant in thankfully healthier times. With restaurant access, back then, oft’ denied, folk stayed indoors, scouring the internet for food porn, and emptying Amazon’s shelves of every conceivable cookbook and ingredient.
Prep’ skills were honed, as the ‘restaurant at home’ phenomenon morphed to become a viable alternative to the coolest (albeit shuttered) eateries. Thus the larder became an important domestic status symbol. One that proudly proclaims: “I cook and ‘store’, therefore I am…”
Today’s larders manifest in all shapes and sizes, as exactingly arranged showcases for your latest Farm Boy haul. And we speak from experience: wine fridges, cheese closets, customizable shelving systems and coffee bar stations (complete with state-of-the-art barista quality machinery by Breville or Electra) are common requests from our paymasters.
Similarly, for the budding Matty Matheson or Mary Berg, French style stone-work ‘desks’ (the perfect surface, doncha know, upon which to flourish artisanal flour ahead of a chi-chi online dough making class) punctuate our request roster.
You need only type #lardergoals into google to espy tailored spaces lined with hand thrown pots, vintage glass jars and artisanal spice racks, artfully tagged and deftly arranged.
As is the case with any project, though, ‘to fail to plan is to plan to fail’. Before attempting to create that dream food library, analyze what you need, and the inventory to be stored, thinking less about ‘Bulk Barn’, and more about beautifully stacked aisles at ‘Eataly’.
Hmm, as a perfect pantry aspirant, the holy grail should be less about ‘end of the world hoarder’, and more about ‘global traveller’.
Beyond being simply de rigueur, the luxe larder is also a real estate accelerant, with builders and home sellers recognizing that, more than ever, people like to cook and host, and that food storage is important.
A spacious pantry equals fewer trips to the grocery store, with realtors reminding us that clients want an easier, less stressful life. They want a sense of order.
No longer simply a ‘cram it in and close the door’ cupboard, the aspirational home larder has now been reimagined as a fascinating food library, thoughtfully organized with tempting comestibles, well planned shelving and precise order at every turn.
To quote our wise auld Scottish grannies: “Hae a place for everythin’, son, and hae everythin’ in its place. If, that is, ye want an easy life.” Wise words, indeed, as the race to create the world’s best larder, continues apace…
Watch for Colin and Justin on Citytv’s Breakfast Television. Find the Colin and Justin Collection in stores across Canada. Visit www.colinandjustin.tv
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