So you want to be a kitchen design consultant?

What brought me here? Not just to picturesque Montana, with its towering mountain peaks and deep river bends, simultaneously symbolizing serenity and brutality, an ominously thin line etched between recreation and peril. But out of the world of a professional chef and its own similarly contrasting facets, and into the world of kitchen design?

After working in the culinary industry for most of my life, I found myself at a crossroads. Wanting to leave the day-to-day headaches of any culinary operation, I still wanted to be in the realm of something I love and deeply believe in: food. I still wanted to bask in the power of the hearth as a place for gathering and enjoying those we want to be around the most. I now had the chance to do that in my own home more than ever before. The Amanos moved to Montana—a return to the mountains for me, a return to the outdoors for my Michigan-farm-raised wife—and immediately embraced the more laid back pace, the community more aligned with us and what we are looking for out of life.

As a result, we've been skiing and fishing and hiking like nobody's business, but what about my day-to-day work life?

I'm fortunate enough to have published several cookbooks, and to have created a culinary journal. My work is based on not only my 25 years in the culinary industry, but my love of everything that surrounds food: culture, tradition, its inherent transcendent ability to transport to a certain time, a certain place. That said, I’ve also had my fill of the food industry, at least as it pertains to restaurant kitchens. It’s a common misstep for a young cook to think that becoming a chef is their only path to celebrating a love of food, and that’s certainly the most glittery track. But not everything that glitters is a line of freshly polished copper pots and razor sharp carbon steel knives in spotless kitchens, nor is it life-goal fulfilling shifts followed by champagne all night with the gorgeous, witty waitstaff. Aside from the camaraderie implied, that’s all false; shifts are rarely fulfilling—more often they are grueling (“this is one of the only jobs where you work all day just to get ready to work all night,” a great chef once said to me), rarely more than a high-paced grind on greasy floors, anxiety-riddled as you think of everything that needs to be done by the same time the next day and the general lack of funds to do it. Things inevitably break—people inevitably break—as tickets line up, dishes pile up, shortcuts become more and more attractive, and the night progresses. And this is before the first turn gives way to the second wave of diners; we haven’t even begun to discuss the headaches of the management of staff amongst all this chaos.

Why would I give all that glamour up, you must be asking? Jokes aside, it was a great time, looking back. Incredible friendships were forged, refined culinary technique learned, culinary and cultural curiosities born and satisfied and born all over again. Exquisite food prepared and eaten, and a membership card punched for a club of sorts, a club bound by fire and steel and sharp edges and indelicate people doing a delicate dance, night after night. I liken it to a pirate ship. Not really somewhere a sane person would want to be, but boy are there rewards if you board and survive. Just get off before the ship sinks or you’re made to walk the plank.

Now, after two and a half decades on that pirate ship, gaining the kind of knowledge fast tracked through sheer pressure and built upon by force of repetition, I found myself on calmer shores, knowing that I want to spend more time at home with my family, maybe writing, maybe just cooking for us. I started to look at pivots away from operating a kitchen without letting go of my love of food and cooking and entertaining. And Amano Kitchen Consulting was born. Here was a space that I could apply my culinary knowledge and experience while helping others with theirs, simply by giving insight on their new kitchen buildouts based on the years and repetitions I've gotten in all of my kitchens. Here was a chance to let “regular” people in on some of the things that make restaurants and my own home kitchens so functional, so useful and performative, so unique.

Be they slammed, popular restaurants, or private kitchens for a high end real estate developer; demo kitchens where I instructed budding culinarians, or test kitchens for my cookbooks, I've just plain gotten a lot of steps in in kitchens, and I want to share that experience and knowledge with people in order to not only make their kitchens better for them, but to play a role in keeping the flame of gastronomy alive in the most important place for it: the home kitchen. The Hearth.

So, as I set out on this new journey, a mentor suggested I start writing about the journey, honing in on why I’m forging this new path, how I’m doing it, and what I’m finding along the way. Here at the outset, my aim is to continually explore unique options and opportunities for home kitchens. To keep exploring food, kitchen equipment and layouts, and yes, even trends (tough for a former pirate who spent a better part of his life wearing black rock tees and trying my best to swim against the current!). To keep searching for inspiration and influence, knowing the difference between the two and how to apply them and my experience to fulfill my clients’ desires and wishes.

That same mentor mentioned Frank Lloyd Wright, and his reputation of not really listening to clients all that much, instead imposing his thoughts and vision on their homes. Fair enough for him, but I'm certainly not FLW, and I definitely don't claim that sort of genius; my goal is to find a sweet spot of listening while supporting and supplementing my clients’ vision with my own expertise-based creativity and imagination. Let's build some hearths together!