As Joshua Weissman welcomes AD into his Austin home in the latest episode of Open Door, he jokes that he doesn’t actually live in a kitchen. On top of his best-selling cookbooks, the chef churns out so much gastronomical video content to feed his nearly 9 million YouTube subscribers that such a disclaimer is warranted. Weissman fell in love with cooking at the age of three while playing sous-chef for his mother at home, going on to hone his skills over stints at fine-dining establishments like Uchiko before striking out on his own and building an internet brand (and a dedicated fan base). His Texas abode, a modern interpretation of an A.D. Stenger home custom-built by Austin firm Matt Fajkus Architecture, boasts myriad amenities for Weissman and his wife to enjoy, but of course, the dwelling’s kitchen takes the cake.
There’s not much on the walls in the minimalist home, so the chef’s choice to display his knives along a magnetized wood block in his cooking space is a meaningful one. “I got a problem with knives—this is one tenth of my knife collection…. These are my prized possessions,” he admits, rhapsodizing about the craftsmanship of his Pie Cutlery tools and their maker, Jody Hale. “This man is an artist. That’s art.”
Weissman splurged on Italian Carrara marble countertops (“I felt like the house was too nice to just have plain white [quartz],” he says). He also offers a hot take when it comes to stoves: Weissman acknowledges that any range that shoppers might pick from a luxury brand would look very beautiful in a kitchen, but he ultimately believes “it’s never going to have the performance of a Wolf. It just won’t.” Luxe materials and high-end appliances aside, he says the most crucial element of crafting the ideal kitchen has little to do with looks.
“The number one thing that’s important about a really great kitchen is not its size or how nice it is, it is about how you organize yourself and how you operate in that kitchen, so that you can actually enjoy the process of cooking,” he says. Everything from noodles to food coloring tablets is decanted in clear containers, labeled, and arranged so that all are visible at once inside his cabinets and drawers. “Instead of having to think so much, I can think with my eyes,” Weissman says.
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Touring through the common areas of the home feels almost like revealing the most intimate parts of his pad: “Now that you’ve been in my kitchen, you’ve basically been in my bedroom,” he jokes. Though in terms of its design, the rest of the residence flows easily from any one room to another, with its pared-back decor scheme and mostly neutral palette throughout. That calm, reserved style allows the house’s standout feature—enormous windows that flood the space with sun—to really sing. “In the morning, the natural light in here is insane,” Weissman says. Such a design choice promotes a different kind of nourishment than the chef’s main medium, but one he appreciates all the same. “Vitamin D is good for you, by the way,” he adds.