Elegant Kitchen Pantry Ideas – How to design the perfect pantry

The kitchen pantry is like an Aladdin’s cave of exotic spices and rustic herbs. Packed full of flavoursome oils, grains, legumes, preserves and a world of rich baking essentials it’s easily one of the most enticing and exciting rooms within any home.

Whether you’re fortunate enough to have a space large enough for a luxurious walk-in kitchen pantry or you’re, cleverly, utilising a spare corner of the kitchen to create extra storage, here are our tips to creating your very own kitchen treasure chest.

Storage

Stripped of all its elegant beauty, a kitchen pantry is first and foremost – storage space. But that doesn’t mean it has to be forgotten and neglected like the lonely cupboard of a spare room, stacked full of small appliances and disorganised clutter. A pantry is above such things. Lined by solid timber shelves, cabinets and drawers that sing under the soft glow of functional task lighting.

A successful pantry should make the most of its modest size; corner pull out cabinets, high shelving for infrequently used items and racks hung from the door full of spices and condiments for easy access. Or consider vertical pull-outs that fill narrow, leftover spaces in a cabinetry run. The ultimate luxurious look and feel of the perfect pantry is a result of clever, well-thought-out storage solutions.

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Pantry Shelving

Shelving is a beautiful way to display your most used cooking ingredients whilst keeping them easily accessible. It may seem like a minor detail but ensuring the correct height and depth of each shelf is crucial to the usability of your pantry. They will also provide the perfect opportunity for soft task lighting.

Whether you prefer baskets, jars or boxes to organise your ingredients, ensuring that all of these storage solutions fit perfectly on your shelves will enable you to maintain a tidy pantry with minimal effort. If you’re unsure of how you will store your food items, as a general rule include shelves of about 16 – 20 inches deep for Kilner jars and baskets, any deeper and it’s easy to lose track of what you have stored (like that forgotten jar of Marmite). For smaller pantries, a minimum of 4-5 inches deep will be ideal for a single row of tins.

If you’re looking to benefit from the full height of our pantry, placing infrequently used items on the highest shelves and including a ladder can create a functional, yet quirky pantry.

Counter space

Counter space in a pantry is the ultimate luxurious upgrade. Serving as a space to place shopping bags as you pack everything away neatly into its designated spot. 

Pantry counter spaces are also a great way to keep any less-frequently used electrical appliances, such as air fryers, slow cookers or rice cookers, readily available without causing clutter in your kitchen.

The Pantry Door

Whether your pantry is of modest size, or a larger room full of culinary treats, it will become a real gem within the kitchen, particularly if you have installed task lighting. So make the most of the space and opt for a glazed door to allow this room to twinkle in your peripheral.