Kitchen of the Week: Amber Peebles’ alfresco kitchen wows

TV presenter Amber Peebles wanted to surprise husband Brooke Howard-Smith with an outdoor kitchen for his 50th birthday, but it didn’t quite turn out as planned. The kitchen did, but not the surprise, considering it took a while to complete and involved cranes on site – it would have impossible to keep it a secret.

But that didn’t stop the couple’s delight in their new alfresco entertaining area at their Waiheke Island house. It’s a highly functional informal landscape that was primarily designed by Peebles herself.

Kitchen designer and manufacturer Rhys Mellor of Love Kitchens says Peebles visited the Homeshow in 2020 and saw a white outdoor kitchen with a pizza oven he had designed: “She was an ambassador for the show, and she loved it, took photos and put it on her Instagram page.”

It was exactly what Peebles wanted for their island home: “We love cooking, and Brooke particularly loves grilling and slow-cooking meats, but we hadn’t considered creating a space like this until I saw Love Kitchens at the home show expo.”

“This is 100% her own design,” Mellor says. “And, interestingly she wanted a feature I had been including in indoor kitchens – a table with curved [waterfall] ends, which I had been manufacturing out of ply. But of course, that material wasn’t going to cut it outdoors through all weathers. So she was responsible for me pioneering a new way to create that table.”

The end result is a peninsula-style table, or bar counter, made from a hard silicon material that resembles timber. And it turned out to be the prototype for a design that Mellor has now replicated in other outdoor kitchens, including one for a Shed 20 apartment on Princes Wharf in Auckland.

Another key point of difference from other kitchens is the white cabinetry. Many outdoor kitchens to date have featured stainless steel cabinets. Mellor says the hardware in this kitchen is stainless steel, but it is hidden from sight, to let the white shine, so it would look more like an indoor kitchen.

The cabinetry features a carcass made from a waterproof board with high-pressure laminate fronts on the doors and drawers, which are flush for a seamless look. These are teamed with white marble benchtops chosen by the couple.

Mellor says the finer details of the kitchen were tweaked several times, to ensure everything was in the best location and to provide the highest level of functionality.

A large Escea 950 woodburning fireplace is the centrepiece. And like the kitchen itself, the white plastered finish of the chimney is offset by the lush green bush backdrop. It is also positioned to ensure the couple can lounge on the furniture (Coco Republic) and enjoy the sea view at the same time.

“The Escea fireplace is a show stealer,” Howard-Smith admits. “With an Ember generator and 13-point adjustable cooking plates, I can cook a complete meal while the fire adds warmth and ambience during the evenings.”

The kitchen cabinetry, to the side takes an L-shape, with the pizza oven occupying the centre, on an angle. There are several storage cabinets, drawers, a built-in Grandfire barbecue, bar fridge and a sink and drainer board on the far right.

Peebles and Howard-Smith say their outdoor entertaining area has become a “sanctuary”. They frequently serve sizzling steaks from the Argentinian grill, butterfly chicken via the Escea fireplace, and of course wood-fired pizzas.

“People never want to leave.”