This Ingenious Sink Was Inspired by Restaurant Kitchens

Who cooks and eats here: Rebecca Odes and Craig Kanarick, and kids
Where: Manhattan
Rent or Own? Owned for five years
See the kitchen tour: Rebecca and Craig’s Family Kitchen in Manhattan

This week we’re visiting Rebecca and Craig, two independent entrepreneurs who live in New York City with their children. They built their dream kitchen — full of smart, interesting details.

Today I want to take a closer look at one of the smartest: A kitchen sink inspired by industrial kitchens, one that does double-duty in all kinds of ways.

We already talked about the inspiration for that glorious backsplash — an artist whose work Rebecca and Craig encountered in Italy. But the sink itself takes its design from more utilitarian spaces: restaurant kitchens.

Craig spent nine months as a prep cook intern at Babbo, one of Mario Batali’s New York restaurants, and while there he came to admire the practicality of restaurant spaces — especially the sink. “I observed and liked the way things were designed,” he told me, “especially the ability to have the prep surface be integrated with the sink. You see a lot of this with industrial kitchens.”

To get that functionality in the home kitchen, the couple made some ingenious design choices. They had the long, deep sink fabricated with an inner lip, with exactly the right dimensions to hold

half sheet pans

And that’s not all the sink can do. “It’s a very flexible design,” Craig explained. “We can cover the entire thing up if we wanted more countertop for display.” For parties the entire sink becomes a bar — covered up with Plyboo cutting boards.

The sides of the sink are angled, too, so dishes can be set down to dry and drain into the sink. And there’s even an integrated knife block between the edge of the sink and the backsplash.

Besides all these deliciously functional design decisions, the stainless steel material also brightens the kitchen, bouncing around the small amount of natural light and reflecting back the gleaming mirrored backsplash. “It felt industrial and not overly cold,” Craig told me.

Rebecca mentioned the sink as the element of the kitchen she looked forward to the most: “I am still pretty in love with our sink. It was kind of a crazy concept, having a restaurant-scaled sink in a home kitchen. But it is incredibly practical and easy to use. Being able to work side by side on multiple things and prep so efficiently with trays and boards that slide right over the bowl is a real joy.”

• Architect & Designer: Jonah Pregerson

The sink was custom fabricated for the space from a design by the couple’s architect, Jonah Pregerson.

Thank you so much for letting us peek into your kitchen, Rebecca and Craig!
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