Aesthetic kitchen essentialsA basic kitchen? Couldn't be me.

Aesthetic kitchen essentials are the antidote to the all-white, nothing-on-the-counter kitchen. A kitchen should look like someone cooks in it, and like that someone has taste.

Start with the espresso machine, steel with a walnut handle, which turns making coffee into a small morning ritual. The Smeg toaster in champagne sits next to it. Glass oil bottles keep the olive oil within reach, and an amber butter dish makes breakfast feel like a hotel.

Then the details. An onyx jar for salt, an onyx sugar pot in green, and an amber candle for when the cooking is done and the kitchen becomes the place everyone ends up. Basic was never the goal.