i wrote about woodworking for vogue 🪚

the hottest chef's table is a table made by a chef

Hello friends, I wanted to share my latest piece for Vogue—chefs who make their own furniture. Niche, right?

Read it here: https://www.vogue.com/article/chefs-making-their-own-furniture

In case it’s interesting, I wanted to share how the piece came together!

The idea for the story came from a stop into Gem Home last November when I was in NYC for G running the marathon. On a walkthrough of the gorgeous space, I learned that owner Flynn McGarry made all of the tables by hand.

I filed that tidbit of information away. Most of my stories come from a moment just like this—a comment or fact that I find interesting and then I keep my eyes and ears open for more of the same.

For trends, I try to find at least three instances to be able to argue that it’s actually a thing.

Some months later, I went to dinner at MOSS in Edinburgh and someone mentioned that the chef, Henry Dobson, had used a fallen tree on his family’s farm to make the tables we were sitting at.

Ding, ding! Alarm bells went off and I started to actively look for the third instance of a chef making their own furniture.

I found a third and fourth, in London and Los Angeles respectively, and could confidently call my shot that this was a trend.

Against the broader backdrop of the interior and culinary worlds knitting closer together, increasingly design-minded chefs made sense.

And as I had seen firsthand from the fine dining scene in Scotland where premium offerings lend themselves to simplicity and shorter supply chains e.g. scallops fished by the chefs themselves, I could see how this could be the next step in the farm-to-table movement, where the tables too come from the farm.

So that’s a little bit about how the piece came together!

Many thanks to my brilliant editor at Vogue who took the piece and for each of you who read it.

From this piece to the medieval fashion article in The Times earlier this year, I’m so happy to be writing the things I can’t stop thinking about.

I have three pieces to finish today so wish me luck!!!!!

You can read the woodworking piece in its entirety here: https://www.vogue.com/article/chefs-making-their-own-furniture

All my love,

Sarah