Interview: Johnny Grey on why homeowners want a new approach to kitchen design

Johnny Grey tells Nicola Hanley how flexible, function-led furniture works best in the kitchen and why he believes that now was the right time to launch the Unfitted Kitchen Company.

“I think fitted kitchens have run out of steam,” says legendary designer Johnny Grey. “I mean they didn’t have a lot of magic in the first place but when you consider that they are part of your life in such a big, close way, you realise that fitted kitchens are very, very inadequate.”

An expert in bespoke kitchens, Grey's encyclopaedic knowledge of the industry stems from a career spanning over 4 decades, during which time his passion for design has never waned. A fascination with neuroscience, he explains, has influenced his approach over the years and has, in part, led him back to the unfitted kitchen, a concept that he came up with in the 1980s and went on to develop through his work with Smallbone.

Launched towards the end of 2023, the Unfitted Kitchen Company is a division of Johnny Grey Studios. It was introduced following lockdown which, Grey says, encouraged people to embrace the kitchen as a social space. “After lockdown, you suddenly had people saying ‘I don’t want this to be a fitted kitchen, I want it to feel more like a living room in which you cook’. That was the moment that I said ‘for goodness sake, let’s use lockdown and people working from home as a way of embracing the social kitchen, where you do lots of different things other than just cook. That’s really where the kitchen needs to go’.”

Price was another big factor that encouraged Grey to move forward with the Unfitted Kitchen Company. "The cost of custom manufacture has gone crazy,” he says. “I don’t think I can get a custom kitchen for less than £100k unless it’s really fairly basic. I don’t want to spend my life doing, or leave a legacy behind of that.”

Unfitted kitchens are, points out Grey, quicker and easier to install than their fitted counterparts. They’re also more sustainable and easier to re-purpose – prototypes and ex-displays are currently available through used kitchen outlet Rehome. Designed to look like furniture as opposed to kitchen units, the pieces within the Unfitted Kitchen Company collection are modular to encourage consumers to embrace a mix and match approach and to make moving and dismantling items easier.

“I’ve been trying to create, particularly among the hero pieces, a sense of what a modern Arts and Crafts kitchen might be like,” Grey explains. “It’s not meant to be overwhelmingly any style. It's meant to mix and match, hence the idea you can add in vintage pieces.”

Each piece of furniture has a clear function from the Frigidarium, Oven and China Cabinet and Island, which incorporates an induction cooking surface, to the Sink Cupboard and Spice and Condiments Cupboard. Particularly noteworthy is the Ambient Dresser, which is one of Grey’s favourite pieces. “It can store memories,” he says. “It’s very important that people have homely objects around them in the kitchen. I don’t care how minimalist you want to be in the kitchen, you still react to emotional objects. Even if you don’t put them in, people quickly realise there is something lacking. There is something very sort of dead about some of these fitted kitchens  where everything is so neat and there’s no evidence of food on display.”

Grey’s ideas on ergonomics, soft geometry and behavioural prompts as well as multigenerational kitchen living are all evident within his designs, particularly the island, which features a rise-and-fall mechanism. It allows all members of a household, regardless of age or mobility, to use the island, and is, he believes, one of the key elements of successful kitchen design. “It’s fascinating because once you put a rise-and-fall mechanism in, all generations can actually be involved in using the kitchen. As soon as people start to use the rise-and-fall element, it’s never a failure.”

Furniture is handmade in limited batches in workshops in Bruton, Manchester, the New Forest and Lithuania, and Grey is currently working on a prototype of a new design, the Butterfly Working Table, which is airier than the original island, with different platforms for different activities. He uses the French medieval word, ‘affordance’ to explain more: “Every surface in the kitchen affords you a certain type of behaviour. So I use that word as the way we plan the surfaces for kitchens. Because dedicated worksurfaces are the other key thing to making kitchens efficient.”

In 2024 Kitchens Etc near Fakenham in Norfolk became the Unfitted Kitchen Company’s first displaying retailer and Butler Interiors in Kirkby Lonsdale in the Lake District has just been announced as the second. It is currently revamping its showroom where the Butterfly Working Table is expected to feature.

“I am looking for a few more retailers,” Grey says. “I’d like about 3 more around the country and I’m very keen to work with design enthusiasts among kitchen retailers.”

There’s a playful element to his designs that Grey hopes will filter through to the retailers selling them. “I want people to be playful with their kitchens. And so retailers must love the idea of making these kitchens a bit more fun.”

In return, Grey ensures retailers get good margins. “The other lovely thing is we offer 3 different levels of services for helping people plan their kitchens. If a dealer comes on board, I will train them up and they will be offering those services to their customers and they will make money.”

It’s also the direction that kitchen design is heading, Grey predicts. “I really believe that in 10 years’ time, 30% of kitchens will be fully unfitted and probably about 50% will be 20% unfitted. They’re humane, they’re normal, they’re friendly, they’re fun, they’re flexible, and they’re what we do with other rooms. Why should the kitchen be different?"