They sound an awful lot like NY Kitchens! And yet I'd still enjoy trading places for a spell.

I would die to be in Paris right now.

Shouldn't we also take into account that proportions in Paris (and Europe, over all) are very small compared to American proportions? Their houses are small, the bathrooms are tiny, the kitchen is tiny, the bedrooms are tiny, but so are the sofas, the tables, the appliances, bottles, lamps, etc.

I adore that second picture.

I remember the fridge in my UK flat fit under the counter (and it included a 'freezer' compartment, too) and there were 3 of us sharing it. Let's say we made a trip to the grocers every other day. That and our kitchen also was our living/sitting room, carpet included.

There's a huge lack of kitchen gadgets in most French kitchens that I spent time in. Proving that you don't really need them (though I do love them). I had 3 Parisian apartments over 4 years and the kitchens were small but adequate. Even in the more rural French houses with larger kitchens people didn't seem to go for gadgets. Just good pots, pans, fresh food and good knives.

None of the people I knew had under the counter refrigerators. They were definitely smaller than the giant two door monstrosities that are trendy here, but they were on par with my current (rather old fashioned) smaller apartment refrigerator. I also didn't know anyone who grocery shopped every day. More than the average person here, but in large part due to going to specialty stores (like a cheese shop) and not wanting to run all over town at once. There are also many more grocery stores around so it's more convenient to stop by on your way home from the metro rather than needing to buy everything in one special trip.

I think the differences have a lot less to do with Paris vs. America and much more to do with city living. I live in Tokyo, and there are similar situations here. I think New York city apartments are similar to what you speak of as well.

The lack of fridge space and tiny for 2 are two of the qualities I did not care for in the UK kitchen I cooked in for months. It appears the French kitchens are even smaller. I concur that local butchers, bakeries, and daily milk delivery make stocking up less necessary, but so does the reduced number of families with two working parents.

I prefer my washer and dryer in the bathroom, mainly for the warm towels when I get out of the shower.

Making plans for a week-long trip to Paris in April where I will be taking cooking classes in someone's kitchen!

sorry, i just can't help myself... "Parisians get by with FEWER gadgets"

otherwise, these four items make me ashamed for the lack of real cooking i do in my tiny apartment kitchen. i really have no excuse.

Hessiebell, I was just thinking the same thing!

We recently stayed in a small studio apartment in the heart of Paris for 2 weeks. (my husband and 2 young daughters) we chose the apartment because it had a full cooktop and oven. I packed an extra suitcase of kitchen utensils- 1/2 of which I didn't use. I'm celiac and thought I would need to do more gluten-free baking. Turns out it's very easy to be GF in Paris, and to get fresh GF bread. That said- We cooked and lived in an area the size of my home kitchen for 2 weeks. What I was most surprised by was that we did just fine with a dorm-sized refrigerator! In fact, since we shopped every day- the fridge was mostly empty except for when I stocked up for Christmas Eve/Day and the day after. Even then- I bought too much, and there was always someplace open... It's made me rethink how I use my home kitchen and refrigerator. I try and emulate Alton Brown and get rid of unitaskers. We made great food and had a fabulous Parisian cooking/food experience.

@Hessiebell and Casey Leigh -- Yes, yes, yes!
This misuse of fewer and less drives me up the wall, and there is no excuse for it; this is not a complicated rule.

Listen up, Kichn! This is the rule:

“Fewer” should be used when the things you are describing are able to be counted.

“Less” is used when is describes an adjective or when it is referring to something that is not countable; it is used to describe abstract or imprecise things like time, speed, quality, etc

Typical to the style of Paris (and many places in Europe): quality over quantity.

I'm European so the parisian house and furniture proportions you guys describe are, well, ordinary to me; reading the comments here I wonder just how big are the houses in the US? the impression I get from the movies is that they are HUGE! (except in NY).

And yeah, it's so true that French kitchens are (usually) super organized. I think it goes down to having all things that are really being used and not too much clutter.

Um, aren't drip coffee filter thingies for American coffee anyway? Other countries have presses or mokas, both of which take up much less space.
Ditto garbage disposal things - mostly to me they're American, even here in Oz where we've got the space in big new builds, they're not very common. We do biggish fridges though, and ice makers are sometime involved. Just not ubiquitous.
& that's the other thing - big new builds. If you live in Paris, your home isnt.

I only ever stayed in a San Francisco and NY flats with european-sized fridges, so I keep wondering what do you put in those huge double-door american fridges ? I guess you gotta feel the urge to keep them filled all the time...

Traditionally French city kitchens are pretty small because the bistro or cafe was such a big part of live. I heard.

@ MissHeliotrope: most houses I've been to throughout Europe had filter coffee makers. Which hardly anyone calls American coffee :)

I am lucky enough to have a smallish apartment (60 sq meter ~600 sq. foot) with a tiny 28 sq foot kitchen in Paris. I do keep a toaster and a citrus juicer out but use a press for coffee, just like at home. A four burner/one oven stove, small apt. refrigerator, clotheswasher and dishwasher take up all the undercounted space except under the sink where all cleaning supplies and trash bit are located. Pots hang and other equipment sits atop the cupboards. I have to use the step stool hanging off the back of the kitchen door often. But it works well if the meal is well planned, and one always has many more resources to put together a great meal without having to prepare every bit of it at the local charcuterie, bakers, markets and specialty shops.

The kitchens in the photos are gigantic compared to New York.

I feel like this post is a little unfair. Paris is an old city with mainly apartment dwelling. If you go to any of the older American city areas with lots of apartments, there won't be much difference except for the fridge size. I live just outside of Boston and can promise that my kitchen isn't much to look at.

"Faux pas," not "faux paux!"

Sorry to be the spelling police. Although, I had a friend who, describing a new jacket, once pronounced it "fox fur," meaning "faux fur," and I freaked out for a minute. :D

My kitchen in an older apartment in the Washington DC area is MUCH smaller than all but the last Parisian one shown. I'd kill for the amount of counter space in those photos.

Careful with the generalizations. All American kitchens are not big. All Parisians are not turning out gourmet meals from teeny kitchens. I bet there are a few folks in Paris who actually don't or can't cook, just like anywhere else.

I agree with Anita 83 - it's more metropolitan "European" kitchens than just Parisian ones. Since in cities around the world, renovating an apartment kitchen (or any part of the apartment itself) can be costly, time consuming, etc. while there isn't much room to work with in the first place, the kitchens in these metropolitan locales (also in the US, Japan, and the rest of the world) will more than likely be "small" by our standards of our McMansion kitchens. Here, Americans tend to lean towards the excess in regards to space and gadgets. The mentality is, if you've got a huge kitchen, why not fill it up with a large refrigerator, dishwasher, microwave, trash compactor, etc. Not only are the smaller kitchens more energy efficient (due to smaller, more efficient appliances), they are also more practical to the needs of the working class, where, like Terry in Silver Spring says, "Parisians [as well as most people] are not turning out gourmet meals from teeny kitchens."

I make due with my tiny kitchen now, and have usually had relatively small kitchens (and kitchen areas) in all the apartments I've lived in. When I was in college, I studied in Florence for a semester, and my kitchen there was bigger than my current kitchen, but I had a small apartment sized refrigerator about half the size of my current one. At first I was annoyed by how small it was, but I grew to appreciate the mentality of going grocery shopping every other day (or even every day). Through this, I learned that great meals don't come from a great kitchen, but from the great ingredients you put into them.

@ericasullivan,
thank you for saying what I wanted to say!!

Some of the kitchen pictured aren't exactly small.

I live in Paris and in my opinion those are all big fancy kitchens in big fancy apartments- ie, I don't know anyone with a kitchen that nice! Mine is quite big by Paris standards since I live in a 'recent' building (built after 1955) and I love how efficient it is. I can practically cook an entire meal without taking more than 2 steps. When I am in my mom's typical Midwestern kitchen, I find it exhausting and ridiculous the way I have to run a laps while preparing a meal. Its true that we can't have many gadgets with such a small space, in fact, it took years before we would even commit to a toaster, but with practice it works. And now, most French people I know can't live without their Nespresso coffee maker, instead of filter coffee.

I love Paris and I love american obsession over it :) Yet, the rest of average European kitchens match provided description, but who would want to glamorize Latvian, Finish or Austrian kitchen? :)))

Some of these things are indeed true of most urban apartments regardless of location -- but the open floor plan kitchen is indeed a (recent) American thing and you will find it in many new construction condos/apartments in New York or any US city. I personally hate it and agree 100% with what the writer says the French think about open kitchens. I didn't know they felt that way but now I feel an affinity for the French because I seriously thought I was the only one who thought open kitchens are a terrible idea and I made sure, when I bought my condo, that there was a good distance between kitchen and dining room. When I'm entertaining, or even just making dinner for myself, I don't want to stare pots and pans and counters that I just made all messy preparing the meal I'm trying to enjoy! I want to be at a beautiful table in a nice clean room with a lovely plate of food where I can totally forget about the cleaning up I'll have to do a bit later! I cannot wait for the open kitchen fad to die.

I think the large american kitchens that in suburban homes tend to rival the living/family room in size are something that we have grown used to but are not actually necessary to cooking. However, for my mom, aunts, or grandma to have my kitchen would be torture. Most of our family gatherings are in the kitchen around the kitchen table preparing dishes to eat for hours before a meal is actually served. When I lived in the UK to come over for Sunday Dinner or Christmas the meal was made sitting out covered with foil. My small kitchen is connected to the dining room but you could not fit a table or chairs in it.

I went to university in the UK, which is also the time I learned to cook. Now I live in the US and I have a large by UK standards kitchen - but smallish on the US side. I find honestly I don't even use all of the counter space I currently have. In general I use 1/3rd of my counter space and half of my cooktop to prepare a meal. Even the ridiculous mac n cheese the hubs requested last night that required 3 pots and the oven.
I could easily get by more happily in a smaller kitchen and definitely with the smaller fridge. I have a smallish apartment fridge in the US but it's basically the same size my ex BF's mum had in Coventry, except the freezer in hers was on the bottom and mine is bigger and on top. I find that we tend to store things in larger bowls then we need thus wasting space and try to store too much fresh food which goes bad by the time we get around to eating it. Not to mention the hubs and his soda problem: I bet if we had a smaller fridge and only two cans put in at a time it would be easier for him to cut down.

My current and former houses have the washer & dryer in the kitchen. It's very convenient!

I live in a typical mid-century Cape Cod house, and my galley kitchen is minuscule compared to those pictured here!

@Moondust
It's who you know vs who I know: none of our family or friends in Italy have anything but mokas - drinking proper espresso-based coffee.

Speaking as a European, it's not my experience that most Europeans - as claimed above - have washers & dryers in the kitchen. Yes, most people have washing machines in the kitchen, but they don't own dryers, which are viewed as unnecessary and bad for the environment. Laundry is line-dried.

i would kill for the counter space in ANY of those pictures! and i'm not even in new york. :)

I live in boston and my college-slum rental has a kitchen close to the size of those pictured. Are those pictures really representative of the norm? The only time I was in Paris (I was 10) I went to a family-friend's apartment and it was MUCH smaller than any of those, and it would only look smaller now that I'm bigger.

Also, I would gladly trade my full size fridge to be near a decent market, butcher, or fishmonger. Instead I live by a horrendous Stop & Shop with a pitiful produce selection and THE WORST meat and fish I've ever had the misfortune of purchasing.

@ MissHeliotrope: Italians excluded. I wouldn't expect less from the country that made coffee a real art. From what I've seen, usually in the UK, France, Belgium and Greece you'll see filter coffee makers.

Moondust - the kitchens and houses you see in American movies are a fantasy - even for Americans. They are that big in the movies to allow for camera angles, etc.

Nicole_g - Your mother's midwestern kitchen is so huge because the rest of the house is so big. No such thing as a big house with a small efficient kitchen in the new McMansions. Modern kitchens have out grown the ergonomic and efficient kitchens that where studied and documented over 50 years ago.
Think European when designing a kitchen or a home: more energy efficient and more human scaled for work and connection with each other.

Umm...the pictures for this article put me in the mind of the average sized kitchen in a town/rowhouse, here in the DC Metro area. Maybe even larger. The eat in function varies, but is common. So I've learned nothing from this post about the differences in Parisian and American kitchens based on looks alone.

wow. um, all of these kitchens are bigger / as big as my toronto mid-century apartment galley kitchen. (which is about 58 sq ft).

plus they're newer. i'm jealous.

are american kitchens really much larger? seems a bit wasteful. imagine the electricity bills.

Just thought I would weigh in as an American living in Paris. The kitchens pictured here are much much bigger than most Parisian apartments I have been in. In fact many apartments do not have ovens at all as all baked goods can be picked up at the corner boulangerie/patisserie. Some people may be churning out gourmet meals, but many are buying frozen food at the Picard grocery chain which is devoted to only selling frozen foods. And though there are less gadgets, the French can fall for the latest trendy item as well as anyone else and most are very proud of their ubiquitous Nespresso coffee machines.

The last picture grosses me out. I can just imagine having to pick bits of dirt out of my food that had fallen through the open-backed stairs.

I would kill for the view in photo 5.

this description would fit most western/eastern/central europe countries :)

Every single one of these kitchens are bigger than the galley kitchen I currently have in my 2-br apartment. Of course, I don't live in Paris....

Most of these look Americanized to me... open? Oversized? Barely any beams! I guess I'm just poor and I like the tiny Attic set-up: except I don't need to see the Tower for a view (unless I'm seeing it magically from an attic over near the Pompidou?) The one place in the world I don't want a shiny modern space is Paris. No, no, no.
But thank you anyway. I miss it so much, it aches.