If you’re looking for a more flexible and creative approach to kitchen furniture, or you have limited space; the John Lewis Freestanding kitchen range is ideal.

The Freestanding Concept brings together a collection of separate, freestanding and functional units that link to form a uniform working kitchen.

Since it isn’t a fitted kitchen, a planning or installation service is not offered; instead you have the chance to plan, design and decide on the kitchen you want, at an affordable price.

It’s easy to plan your kitchen and try out different layouts and choose from a range of individual base and wall units, in a choice of door colours; there are also other useful units, such as pull-out bins and a wine rack:

• All the units are easy to fit - and take apart - so its easy to extend or refresh your kitchen, or even move them to a new house.
• Each freestanding kitchen unit comprises an MDF core with a beech finish wrap; and an integrated grey 40mm, high-pressure laminated worktop.
• The doors and drawers have lacquered gloss painted fronts and brushed nickel-finish bar handles.

The contemporary-style kitchen featured has beech-effect cabinets and a choice of 4 gloss door colours in white, cappuccino, burgundy or black, so you can even mix and match colours.

Retail price examples - 1100mm Hob Base Freestanding Kitchen Units, Burgundy £625 - £675.

3-Drawer Base Freestanding Kitchen Units, Burgundy £450 - £700.

Hi-Line Double Base Freestanding Kitchen Unit, Burgundy £500.

Web: http://www.johnlewis.com

Tel: (08456) 049 049

LG has announced an extension to its stylish WaveDOM cooking range; the new full-glass front panel microwave, will appeal to consumers who seek both style and the latest technology in the kitchen.

With its sleek, space-efficient design, LG’s WaveDOM retains the benefits of a unique rounded interior and is available in solo, grill and combination versions; each product has a different capacity, which ranges between 23L and 30L:

• A long sleek handle, widescreen display and easy to use buttons contribute to an overall improved exterior, which will enhance any kitchen and comply with the popular trend of open space living.
• Available in black, white, silver and stainless steel.
• Perfect for families and high-flying professionals, whose hectic lives mean they need to create meals in minutes.
• The WaveDOM’s rounded interior generates better internal wave reflection, to make cooking 30% faster.
• Provides 60% more cooking space than a conventional square cavity microwave.
• Makes cleaning easier and more hygienic, by eliminating difficult to reach corners.

Zeynep Ucan, Marketing Manager, LG UK, says, “Many kitchens are now being seen as focal points of the home. Product quality is no longer only about technology but also superior design.”

LG’s new WaveDOM range has won the Good Design Award for design excellence in 2007 and is now available in Comet stores nationwide and other leading independent electrical retailers.

Web: http://www.lge.co.uk

Tel: (0870) 873 5454

Brabantia has introduced two new kitchen accessories to make waste collection and recycling simplicity itself.

Take the hassle out of sorting your household rubbish for recycling, with Brabantia’s built-in separator with two compartments for different items such as bottles, cans, packaging or organic waste.

The unit fits into a kitchen cabinet within a sliding drawer that opens smoothly and silently, giving full access to both compartments:

• Its compact size (345 x 475 x 360mm) enables the separator to be concealed inside most kitchen cabinets or even underneath the kitchen sink.
• Compartments are removable making them effortless to empty.
• The plastic inner buckets are easily cleaned and feature special clips to hold the bin liners neatly in place, or used to identify the contents of each bucket.
• Made of durable, corrosion resistant materials the separator comes with a 10 year guarantee and retails at around £75.

Another smart waste solution, is their built-in kitchen bin, which keeps rubbish out of sight leaving your kitchen or bathroom tidy and pristine; raised off the floor its particularly suited to ‘wet’ rooms or places with limited floor space:

• It has a sturdy black plastic lid, which opens and closes silently.
• It’s also easy to clean and matching Brabantia bin liners make emptying trouble free.
• Simple to install, it can be fixed inside most kitchen units using a wall-mounted bracket.
• The built-in bin retails at around £15 and comes with a 10 year guarantee.

Web: http://www.brabantia.com

Tel: (0870) 240 7641.

Cotteswood of Oxfordshire has created beautifully crafted tailor made furniture for over 24 years and seen many trends during that time.

The company’s bespoke kitchen designs, are inspired by classical English furniture and every element of the furniture is designed and made exclusively for you; appreciating that their ideas and designs have to be sympathetic to your architectural style and meet your requirements of colour, texture and space.

The latest must have for a kitchen is combining traditional wood finishes with contemporary materials and up to the minute appliances.

Revival and Renaissance cabinets feature painted cabinetry, with granite and walnut work surfaces and wood veneer interiors; the deeper frames below the wall and base cabinets are hallmarks of the Renaissance designs:

• The extra strong dovetail jointed drawers are made in a range of timbers to complement the exterior finish of the cabinets and every door is constructed with mortice and tenoned frames.
• Cabinets can be painted to any colour of your choice.
• Whether freestanding or fitted, all furniture is built to last.

Cotteswood Kitchens are proud to have won the House Beautiful Kitchen Range of the Year Award 2007; the Renaissance Range caught the judge’s eye, in what was one of the toughest categories.

A downloadable price guide is available on the Cotteswood website.

Web: www.cotteswood.co.uk

Tel: (01608) 641858 / 644620

Aldenham is a private company that designs manufactures and installs beautiful handmade kitchens and other furniture to the highest standards.

All of the kitchens in their portfolio are real kitchens designed individually to fulfil the customer’s wishes.

Going for Bespoke - You can tell truly bespoke kitchens by the detail; Aldenham always start with a blank sheet of paper and because there are no standard elements, their kitchen designs are full of unique custom-made details, which can only be built by skilled cabinetmakers.

The stunning kitchen shown here occupies a highly unusual space, with irregular heights, slanting rooflines and other architectural elements around which the furniture has been designed and built.

Aldenham has used a variety of techniques to maximise the impact and the use of space including ‘secret’ cupboards in the chimneybreast, tall cupboards scribed in at an angle and curves to add interest.

Every zone works to its fullest potential but without any sense of the kitchen being cluttered. It is a clever and sophisticated design, which could never be achieved with ‘standard’ kitchen elements.

Web: http://www.aldenham.info

Tel: (01189) 706 711

La Cornue is celebrating its one-hundredth birthday with the launch of a new creation of their classic Chateau kitchen range - The Série Centenaire.

Founded in 1908, this prestigious family company has produced generation after generation of truly elegant kitchen range cookers that integrate technological innovations with truly elegant design; it was Albert Dupuy, the company’s founder who produced the first gas circulation meat and pastry cooker.

The Série Centenaire remains true to the La Cornue heritage, with its stunning, timeless design and state of the art quality; however, it will feature some new cleverly integrated characteristics to celebrate its anniversary:

• The hob is fitted with fantastic new professional brass burners with automatic electronic ignition and now proudly sports the engraved seal of La Cornue.
• The burners are very high-performance, using remarkably less energy than previous models.
• The oven doors have newly developed vents and ventilation, which temper them at 66°C, so that a butterfly could land on them without risk to its delicate wings.
• Further fine-tuning and improvements include strengthened oven insulation and air tightness.

Even in one hundred years, La Cornue has never compromised on their manufacturing technique – today the Chateau and Cornuchef cookers are still handmade made to order, by one craftsman with patience and pride just outside Paris.

La Cornue is stocked at Divertimenti, 227 – 229 Brompton Road and in selected kitchen showrooms across the UK.

Web: http://www.la-cornue.net

Tel: +44 207 591 0110.

Oysters are one of the great pleasures for true epicureans, but they are one of the most complex foods to get at – and all too often minor or worse accidents happen.

The task is almost easy and much safer with these novel tools from Pott:

The Oyster Chucker, Marisco, is a knife specifically designed for opening oysters and the stainless steel glove will keep you safe doing so; the glove is in meshed stainless steel with a fixture on the wrist to prevent it sliding down. The glove is reversible and fits on either the left or right hand.

How to Chuck an oyster:

• Hold the Marisco knife in your strongest hand and put the glove on the other; pick up an oyster in the gloved hand, with the curved side down and the narrow end towards you.
• Insert the oyster knife in the hinge at the narrow end and wiggle it about from left to right; press quite hard and eventually the hinge will give way, allowing you to lift the flat top shell by twisting the knife upward.
• Slide the knife along the underside of the flat shell to cut the ligament that connects to the oyster and remove top shell.
• Keeping the bottom shell level so as not to spill the juice, remove any bits of shell, then cut underneath the oyster to release it, so the flesh will slide off easily when the shell is tilted.
• Arrange the oysters in their half shells in the stainless steel Oyster bowl over crushed ice.

The Oyster Glove comes in two sizes and retails at £152.20.
Marisco Oyster knife retails at £111.10; Stainless Steel Oyster bowl for 12 oysters including stand, retails at £119.30.
Tabletop bowls for 6 oysters retail at £42.80 and for 3 oysters at £34.60. Oyster spoon retails at £26.40.

Web: http://www.tabletopdesign.co.uk/

Tel: (0118) 934 9424

Brabantia has launched the ‘S’ Line, a smart collection of sleek stainless steel kitchen tools.

Ergonomically shaped, the new collection adds a touch of style to any kitchen and offers five highly functional items, all designed to make food preparation a more tactile and enjoyable task.

The ‘S’ Line set comprises a meat fork, skimmer/strainer, soup ladle, spatula and vegetable spoon; it comes with a matching hanging rack with an ‘invisible’ hook system, which uses discrete indentations behind the handle, giving the appearance that they are held on by magic!

All items in the range have a high gloss brilliant steel finish and together with their smooth contours, are easy to clean and dishwasher proof.

Dimensions: Hanging rack including kitchen tools, width 410 cm height 360 cm.
The ‘S’ Line set (including hanging rack) retails at around £49 and has a five-year guarantee.

Brabantia products are available from leading retailers, including high street department stores, superstores and quality independent home-stores.

Web: http://www.brabantia.com

Tel: (0870) 240 7641.

The new MG600 Modular Grill from Mercury Appliances built-in range, is the product of extensive research and development, resulting in levels of performance and functionality usually only found in professional equipment.

Stylish, tough, durable and efficient, this modular grill provides an ideal solution especially for owners of heat store range cookers.

The unique fully extending grill carriage and cool full width bar handle enable you to turn food easily, safely and smoothly.

The powerful 3kW option gives food a branded and char-grilled appearance, while the dual circuit element gives you the choice of using only the inner area or the whole grill.

Other features include: vitreous enamel finish internal grill cavity, for ease of cleaning and a removable roof panel.

Dimensions: H300mm x W595mm x D555mm.

The elegant clean lines of the Modular Grill are complimented perfectly by its contemporary brushed steel finish, an invaluable addition to any kitchen.

Whether you are, preparing a romantic dinner for two, or entertaining guests, Mercury believe that cooking should always be a pleasure, never a chore.

Web: http://www.mercury-appliances.co.uk

Tel: (01522) 881717

Menu’s new Thermos combines nature’s shapes with stylish and efficient high-tech materials to ensure the highest level of functionality.

The thermal insert, which can hold up to 1.0 litre is made of double-walled stainless steel; obviously, this is far more robust than the traditional glass insert, therefore the insulating effect is unparalleled.

The jug is a joy to pour due to the sturdy, perfectly balanced handle and the outer thermal jug shell is made of a solid synthetic material that has subsequently been coated with matt black synthetic rubber; this ensures that the jug is easy to clean, whilst still keeping its cool, sophisticated elegance.

The screw-on lid, also made of the black synthetic material, creates a perfect seal and stays in place throughout pouring; a single touch of the button in the middle of the lid permits the pouring of liquid.

Design: Pernille Vea.
Materials: Synthetic material, stainless steel and synthetic rubber.

Retail price: £49.95.

Web: http://www.menu.as

Tel: +45 48 40 61 00