Working (and tasting) their way through five locations in just under five days, interiors editor Ben Kempton and deputy lifestyle editor Pei-Ru Keh embarked on a showroom trail from Italy to Germany, with the aim of creating some tasty scenes to showcase the best kitchens of 2010.
To see the results you will have to turn to this month's entertaining special W*141 where the full shoot, as photographed by Andrea Garuti, is documented. However, for wallpaper.com, we snapped the process to show how it was done.
Extracting key ingredients from a melting pot of themes, places and flavours, the final kitchen scenarios play host to our ultimate fantasy meals, from an industrial afternoon high tea, to the essential TV takeaway.
Photographer Andrea Garuti inspecting the romantic meal-for-two style scene at the Boffi kitchen
An aerial shot of the team at work at Valcucine in Milan, the second kitchen on our shoot list
The kitchen showroom also doubles up as a bookshop, so the team carefully put books neatly away into categorised piles to make way for the kitchen to be shot.
Pleased with the way the images are unfolding as the shoot progresses
Getting into position for more shots
Interiors Editor Ben Kempton indulging his passion for putting things into straight lines
A large collection of scientific glassware from Laurence Brabent for the Valcucine shoot, which is based on molecular dining.
Deputy Beauty & Lifestyle Editor Pei-Ru Keh with her finger on the pulse, or should we say pulses?
Lunch on the go at Valcucine - spot the real pizza in this picture.
On the move at the crack of dawn from Milan to Bologna to shoot the Ipe Cavalli kitchen
On the set of our formal dinner party kitchen at Ipe Cavalli
The cake that appears in the final shot of the kitchen, bought locally in Bologna.
Lunch in Ipe Cavalli’s staff kitchen with the shoot team
A welcome arrival in Germany, where we set up base near Hanover in Herford for the Eggersmann kitchen shoot
Nice graphics on the side of a supermarket van spotted on the way to the Eggersmann shoot
Selecting biscuits and treats for the shoot, which was centered on the concept of industrial high tea
Pei-Ru making a carefully-considered decision on which ones make the cut
Spoilt for choice in the sausage aisle at a supermarket in the small town of Hiddenhausen, also where the Eggersmann HQ is based
Stumbling on a brilliant bakery while out researching for the shoot
Carefully unwrapping some blue china by Piet Hein Eek
Ben wrestles with a heavy steel cake stand by Tom Dixon...
... before making sure the top of a brown paper bag is perfectly rolled and placed on the kitchen’s monolithic granite block surface
Pei-Ru reveals the ’secret door’ to the appliances, which lie behind the electronic cupboard panelling.
Funny little starter meal, complete with fan napkin
Misty morning drive and another early start as the team head to the Häcker HQ
At Häcker kitchen HQ
The team make some great German food packaging finds whilst shopping for ingredients for the Häcker kitchen
More props for the fast-food-style shoot
Ben meticulously messing up the stacked pizza boxes
The kitchen lined with takeaway boxes and pizza cartons
Inspector Pei-Ru giving the shoot space a final once-over
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