Cassie Jones of Masterclass Kitchens on the latest high-end kitchen trends

Cassie Jones, brand manager at Masterclass Kitchens, explores the latest high-end kitchen trends and gives an update on the company's recently launched innovations.

Every month, 700,000+ UK readers search Google for help designing an on-trend kitchen, and hundreds of thousands more browsed Pinterest and TikTok. Clearly, there’s an appetite for knowledge on this topic. At Masterclass, as a luxury kitchen manufacturer with 150+ UK retail partners and a 50-year heritage, we constantly research homeowner tastes, talk to designers, track search trends and create award-winning cabinetry innovations.

Ever watched an old home video set in a high-end kitchen you still own? When we reminisce, we notice differences – the fashion choices, the video quality, the loved ones no longer in our lives. What we rarely register is any change in high-end kitchen design.

This isn’t just you, either. It’s a global phenomenon. According to the British Institute of Interior Design, professional designers favour timelessness in high-end bespoke kitchens because, unlike with fast fashion, kitchen design changes are incremental. Major changes take decades to appear.

That’s not to say they don’t happen; they’re just more of a glacier than a flash flood. In reality, high-end kitchen design companies update ranges constantly. 

High-end handleless kitchens
Nothing denotes modernity more than clean lines. This aesthetic started with modern kitchens. However, in recent years, designers have taken this quality to another level. Nowadays, as a result, many high-end contemporary kitchens are fully handleless with extremely crisp lines.

At Masterclass Kitchens, we’ve doubled down on that precision, augmenting our craftsmen with new machines and practices to help them create sleeker cabinets and reduce waste. Due to these innovations, we can now offer more colours in our Amalfi range, including our new Rosso colour.

As always, our focus isn’t just skin deep, either. Hence, we’ve also added Portland Oak and Tuscan Walnut interior and drawer box options to all our handleless ranges, in addition to their original Anthracite Linen colouration. This increased choice extends to standard cabinets and Signature storage options like our Hathaway and Lansbury pantries, and our Connery drinks cabinets.

Skinny Shaker and in-frame-effect doors
Demand for 2 door styles ballooned this year, according to our research. One is in-frame-effect doors. The other is the skinny Shaker style. People want a modern twist on a traditional, handcrafted kitchen. In short, they want the handmade kitchen feel, but for it to be more precise and affordable.

Our newest in-frame Clifton and our skinny Shaker Oslo range doors cater to this demand for affordable handmade kitchens made to customer specifications. Again, this fresh possibility has emerged due to us augmenting our craftsmen with cutting-edge tech to supercharge their accuracy.

Luxury pantries with glass doors
Once prioritised for their utility, luxury pantries are back and better than ever. Only, this time, high-end pantries have full-length glass doors. Adding glamour and practicality, this twist enables homeowners to see their ingredients at a glance, which is ideal for stock checking during the weekly Ocado order. Take our latest iteration of the Hathaway pantry. Pictured here with glass pantry doors in Tuscan Walnut, it comes in a widened range of wood colours and a choice between black- or bronze-tinted glass – all reinforced, so there's no worry about safety issues.