At Home with The Cook’s Atelier
At Home with is an ongoing journal series exploring the homes of thoughtful creatives. Through conversations and photography, we discover what home means to them, the values that shape the way they live, and the details that make each home unique. Though every story is different, home is always at the core.
Our next story brings us to a small village near Beaune in the Burgandy region of France where we are delighted to visit the Cook’s Atelier family at their idyllic countryside home, the Woodland House. The Cook’s Atelier is a renowned French cooking school and culinary boutique, founded in 2008 which intertwines work and family. Dedicated to teaching classic French techniques, they celebrate seasonal ingredients, and inspiring meaningful connections through cooking. The Cook’s Atelier welcome food lovers from around the world to experience the beauty of Burgundy and the art of French cuisine.
The Woodland House, the family home is a historic stone property dating back to the 1800s that once served as a walnut mill. Sympathetically restored with natural materials and local brocante finds, it retains its authentic French charm and rich character. The interiors have been furnished slowly over time and reflect the families appreciation for timeless pieces which last and have a story. Similarly, the outdoor spaces have been thoughtfully considered and offer special areas for guests to gather and share memorable moments around the table, enjoying local food and wine.
The Cook’s Atelier have lovingly created a warm and inviting family home that feels deeply personal and in harmony with its natural surroundings. Step inside this special woodland house and enjoy their beautiful images and thoughts about home.
Tell us a little about yourselves and your background.
We are Marjorie Taylor and Kendall Smith Franchini, the mother-daughter duo and co-founders of The Cook’s Atelier, a French cooking school, culinary boutique and wine shop in the heart of Burgundy, France. The Cook’s Atelier was an idea years in the making – one that involved lots of brainstorming and countless glasses of wine. We started with no formal business plan, just a strong gut instinct to create a place that we would love, and hoped that others would, too. We wanted to create a convivial gathering place where we could share our love of food and wine with other home cooks from around the world.
Where do you call home and what is it like?
The Cook’s Atelier (our cooking school) is located in Beaune. The family house where Kendall, Laurent and the three grandchildren live, is just a short drive south from Beaune along the route des Grands Crus. This property is an extension of our Atelier in Beaune and is lovingly referred to as The Woodland House. A beautiful example of simplicity in nature, the entire property, which is now back to its original state as it was 200 years ago, is a haven for wildlife in the area as well as a little ecosystem in its own right. In addition to our cook’s garden, we’ve added bee hives, a hen house and a proper greenhouse just next to the forest garden.
What does home mean to you?
To us, home means a place to create space for the beautiful things and moments that bring us happiness.
How would you describe your aesthetic and style?
The Woodland House kitchen feels like the yin to the yang of our Atelier teaching kitchen in Beaune. While the school is very white and bright, the family house is moody and natural, with a similarly clean style but a seamless connection to the outdoors. Both of our kitchens are filled with really great energy and are a welcoming place for family as well as the guests who come visit us from around the world. You won’t find plastic items in our kitchens as we prefer to use wooden spoons and cutting boards and pots and pans that can last a lifetime. There are always fresh herbs just picked from the garden or from the market stored in glass jars like fresh flowers and plenty of candlelight to create a warm and inviting space. (Note, our third kitchen aka the Barn Kitchen is currently being renovated at the Woodland House and will be ready for use in spring 2025).
Which is your favourite space in your home and why?
For us, the kitchen is the very most important part of the house; we believe wholeheartedly in the adage that the kitchen is the heart of the home. We’ve designed our kitchens very intentionally, so that the things we use are just where we need them, when we need them. How we store things both at The Cook’s Atelier and at home lends a streamlined aesthetic that makes us enjoy every moment we spend cooking. The point is that it’s not necessary to have a grandiose kitchen or dining room, but that you do need to make your space warm, well organized, welcoming, and functional for the whole family. It starts with having a place for everything, which you can do no matter where you live, and no matter how much space you have.
How do you choose what to bring in to your home?
We are a family of collectors. We love to search for beautiful as well as useful items such as vintage copper pots and pans, French creamware, a mix of vintage cutlery and monogrammed linens. All of these little details make a meal all the more special because you are using the things that you love.
Where do you find inspiration for your home?
We call the Woodland House “the inside outside house,” because between the kids, the dog, three cats, the chickens, and our guests, the doors seem to never close, and our yard simply becomes an extension of the house. Everything about it is beautiful, but almost nothing about it is perfect. It allows us to live with one foot outdoors, in a place where we can enjoy picking wild asparagus from the forest and washing our potatoes in the stream and leaning on good neighbors to teach us the rhythm and skill of beekeeping. The Woodland House lives the way we live—seasonally and exuberantly, and sometimes with a bit of a mess. Every Friday during our Seasonal Burgundy Masterclass five-day program, we invite guests there to help us cook lunch, often turning a whole chicken on the indoor fireplace’s rotisserie, and then we enjoy it al fresco on the terrace outside the barn. The house came with a cozy French version of hygge, and treating guests to an afternoon at the Woodland House gives us a chance to share the joy we find in living there.
Who do you most admire for their sense of style, ethos and aesthetics?
We have been long time admirers of Tricia Foley. We love her style which is un-cluttered, simple and very approachable. We love her mix of vintage and her clean, simplistic style as well as her encouragement that money is not essential to have a beautiful home. Simple spring flowers from the market with the appropriate amount of candlelight always makes a house into a home.
This journal story has been shared to coincide with the release of the Cook’s Ateliers second cookbook, French at Heart, which celebrates home cooking through a treasury of recipes, photographs and stories. The recipe below is an extract from this beautiful book which delivers more than 100 go-to recipes and shows how to create simple, joyous family meals around your own table, in whatever place you call home.
Salade Nicoise Recipe from French at Heart
