20th June 2024 | IN EXPERT INSIGHT | BY SBID ShareTweetPinterestLinkedIn What are the origins of the business? For more than 100 years, La Cornue has striven for excellence, with high standards as a guide and the pleasure of the senses as its inspiration. From the vaulted oven conceived and patented in 1908 to the custom-designed ‘haute couture’ ranges of today, La Cornue has always been able to combine authenticity and modernity, tradition and innovation, in order to embody a certain idea of the art of living the French way. La Cornue’s exceptional cooking ranges are crafted by artisans, passionate women and men. They are the result of precision know-how, which combines meticulous handling, the finest materials, attention to detail and five-star service. Appreciated throughout the world, La Cornue’s creations have earned it the trust and friendship of great names in gastronomy and are suitable for preparing everything from a simple cake through to a seven-hour leg of lamb. The centrepiece and true keystone of La Cornue cookers, the vaulted oven is the fruit of the abundant imagination of Albert Dupuy, a herbalist-perfumier and a renowned gourmet. His invention in 1908, just like La Cornue, was inspired by the vaulted tunnels of the Paris metro, inaugurated in 1900. Thanks to its particular shape – then unprecedented – the vaulted oven allowed air to circulate in a natural and even way, making it the first convection oven. How do your products and services enhance interior design projects? The product range from La Cornue is designed to be flexible and versatile. The use of colour, the wide selection of trims and the numerous size options available all make it easy for the customer to transform their home and tell a design story through its interior. As well as its iconic ranges, La Cornue also makes kitchen islands and cabinetry. In fact, we have just launched new cabinetry designs that allow for greater symmetry in kitchen design and the lining up of horizontal surfaces for a cleaner look. The breadth of La Cornue’s offering means the consumer can achieve a stylishly pared-back, look or an opulent kitchen with a real sense of drama. What value does your specialist sector add to the industry? The kitchen is generally seen as the heart of the home and the cooker the centrepiece of that space. La Cornue is an artisan brand which, for more than a century, has offered luxury ovens that are hand-crafted, designed for performance and are utterly beautiful. Our products are investment pieces, once-in-a-generation purchases that come with a long history of French culinary savoir-faire as standard. La Cornue How do you work with interior designers? La Cornue works with some of the world’s most renowned interior designers and does so in a spirit of true partnership. We see ourselves as an extension of their in-house teams, working directly with them and their clients. We usually begin with a virtual consultation during which we explore every aspect of the brief, and pinpoint what is most important to the designer. We then interpret the brief to provide either a quotation or an initial design concept. The starting point can either be an interior designer’s ideas and how we work within that or, more usually, we begin with the La Cornue cooker and they build around that. What has been your most significant company highlight or success from the past year? One of the highlights of the past year was the launch of the gorgeous Castel 60. A brilliant small space design solution, the award-winning 60cm model is our very first cooker with a touch-sensitive induction hob, offering a range of functions and it is a joy to use. It’s also been a year of hugely successful exhibitions for La Cornue, including KBIS – the largest kitchen industry show in North America – EuroCucina in Milan, and our first-ever appearance at kbb at the NEC in Birmingham. Over the past 12 months, we’ve also been involved in many significant and truly exciting (but sadly secret) client projects. What are the latest trends you’ve noticed in your client’s requests? There’s a real move towards adding more personality everywhere in the home and this is particularly true in the kitchen. People are moving away from the idea that everything should be neutral and are embracing colour and pattern more and we are seeing the same thing. We’ve been able to help clients make a real statement in kitchens where budgets have been tighter. For example, we’ve been able to meet investment level expectations – while still achieving an ultra-high-end look – by using two 90cm Cornufé models side by side to create a dramatic statement making focal point in the kitchen. Colour, too, has become more popular with designers taking advantage of La Cornue’s extensive colour palette, bespoke colours and our hugely accurate colour-matching service. How do you see the interior design industry evolving in the year ahead? Homes are becoming more personalised, with many of us wanting somewhere they feel at home in, more than one that is simply super-fashionable for a short time. We see people looking for buy-once investment pieces, subscribing to a more sustainable, longer-term approach based on high-quality pieces that will stay with them for a long period. It is the opposite of fast fashion. Is there anything new you are excited to be working on? We have been working with internationally renowned artists and designers to create stunning re-imaginings of three of our most iconic cookers. Ferris Rafauli is best known for seamlessly integrating timeless architecture and sumptuous interior designs into each project, with a masterful attention to detail. To create his exclusive reworking of the iconic Château Suprême collection for La Cornue, Rafauli considered and revised elements of the range to bring out its most quintessential qualities, taking the precision of the lines and exquisite details to a whole new level. Matthew Quinn – an international figure in design and architecture – has created the Château Moderne to offer contemporary styling and a new aesthetic symmetry. Finally, the French jeweller Tournaire has created a series of intricate bas-relief sculptures in bronze to further enhance the controls, handles, brackets and trims on the La Cornue collections. We have also launched a new range of sumptuous gold-plated and silver-plated trims, as well as Blue Velvet, a gorgeous navy blue satin finish, and two new bronze trims. Our smaller projects, too, are also very satisfying. It is so rewarding when you work directly with the client and provide something really special that makes a huge difference within a smaller kitchen project. Equally, we are seeing projects getting bigger and bigger and ever more elaborate. What does being an SBID Accredited Industry Partner mean to you? We love working with designers and value hugely the creative conversations that come from being a member of a body like the SBID. We are also excited to see what others are doing. Every project is so very different and, having a bespoke product range, we are always challenging ourselves to realise the look and feel interior designers are striving to achieve. It is amazing how a 360º vision can be achieved through creative partnership. La Cornue About Middleby Residential Luxury and Premium Brands La Cornue is part of Middleby Residential, a collection of premier international consumer brands dedicated to manufacturing and distributing many of the best-known and loved kitchen appliances in the world. Middleby is a world leader in developing advanced innovation and solutions for commercial, residential, and industrial foodservice. The company is proud to connect with communities through philanthropic engagement, sustainable initiatives and more. Middleby’s aim is to set the standard for tomorrow, with a goal of serving excellence in everything we do. Visit Profile If you’d like to feature your news or stories on SBID.org, get in touch to find out more. If you’d like to become SBID Accredited, click here for more information.