Having one career as an acclaimed filmmaker and screenwriter would be busy enough for most people. But Gaby Dellal, who has worked with Hollywood stars such as Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon and Naomi Watts, has managed to chalk up a second successful one in an altogether different environment: the kitchen.
Alongside her eldest son Jake Fellner, Dellal has quietly built Create Studio London, a bespoke kitchen practice whose projects – known for their warmth and personality – have quickly garnered a dedicated following among design enthusiasts and celebrities alike.
It was a move that happened organically. On the surface, her two worlds have little in common, but Dellal explains that this is far from the case. “My passion is film and theatre, and it’s really about creating a place from which a story starts or unfolds,” she explains. “I’m very much a filmmaker that cares about the production design, and as a result, by creating very specific habitats in which actors do their work or my stories get told, I realised that I really have a love for dressing kitchens and design
Friends, as well as actors she worked with, soon spotted Dellal’s natural flair with interiors and began to ask for help with their homes. This famously includes Sienna Miller, who entrusted Dellal to design her thatched-roof cottage in the Buckinghamshire countryside during lockdown. When the house was published by Architectural Digest back in 2022, it instantly went viral for its charming and unassuming decor. But arguably the most compelling room was its kitchen. With its surprisingly liveable bubblegum pink walls, reclaimed and antique pieces and a farmhouse table, it was the very antidote to what many imagined a kitchen owned by an A-lister would look like.
“It wasn’t too daunting and not the sort of kitchen that you felt that you could never afford,” agrees Dellal. “It had real heart and soul. But also, Sienna has real heart and soul too. She’s a very normal, down-to-earth and family-orientated person and the kitchen, as well as the whole house, reflected that.”
Following the success of that project, Dellal had a deluge of interest from potential clients and three years ago, Create Studio was eventually born. Now Dellal juggles it with her filming commitments.
Neither Dellal nor Fellner had intentionally set out to launch a design business. “It wasn’t very considered,” Fellner, who worked as an entrepreneur before Create Studio, admits. “We thought ‘let’s do it quietly. We’re both busy. We both have other jobs so let’s see where it goes’.”
But Dellal has always had a love for kitchens. “Having had three sons, the heart, as we say, of the home is the kitchen. So growing up, my kids did everything in the kitchen, from homework to playing football,” she says with a laugh. “And I was always obsessive about getting everybody around the table.”
At the same time, Fellner developed a passion for cooking and ended up working as a line chef. “So that naturally blossomed into us always talking about kitchens, and the efficiency of kitchens, and the best way to lay out a kitchen,” she adds.
Fellner agrees: “It’s a core part of who mum is and the world that I was brought up in – that people are in the kitchen or at the dining table, and you’re feeding them, and bringing them together, and creating the environment for connection and whatever else comes with it.”
What makes Create Studio’s work distinctive isn’t one recognisable look but a shared philosophy and a reaction against what Fellner sees as increasingly formulaic interiors. “Everything we do feels like it’s been collected over time,” he says. Indeed, rather than specifying pristine, matching materials, the duo combine reclaimed timber, vintage lighting, antique furniture, salvaged stone and intriguing combinations of colour.
That instinctive approach also shaped a brass kitchen they designed in the London home of actress Joely Richardson – daughter of Vanessa Redgrave – who is a long-time friend of Dellal since they met as teenagers.
“We’d never done a brass kitchen before,” Dellal explains. “It was inspired by beautiful gilt antique mirrors that Joely had. We said ‘Well you love gold, let’s go gold.’” Jake agrees that every project starts with one meaningful idea. “The mirrors drove colour choices, metal and material choices, scale and structure.”
Working with her son, Dellal believes, has become one of the studio’s biggest strengths. “I’m probably more impulsive,” says Dellal; Fellner often deciphers those initial thoughts. “There’s a proper conversation where you are listening to each other and refining each other’s ideas,” he says.
Increasingly, clients are asking Dellal and Fellner to design entire homes rather than simply kitchens.
“The kitchen can’t just sit alone,” says Fellner. “It has to speak to the rest of the house. There has to be a consistency.”
Even so, the kitchen is the space that continues to fascinate them. “The design has to really come from the client’s heart and then we put it all together,” says Dellal. “In many ways we end up always being bespoke because we have our unique ways of seeing and doing.”
A guide to elevating your kitchen
Lighting
Lighting should never be an afterthought. While Jake admits he and Dellal have been against downlights in the past, technological advances have softened that view. “You can do amazing things now with downlights so you don’t get that aggressive glare,” he says. “It’s worth taking the time to look into what modern downlights can do, because there is a lot that you can achieve.” He believes the key to good lighting is layering. “It’s having lighting that does everything you need it to do, but at different times.”
Dellal adds that it is important to have lighting under shelves. “And if there’s glass in the cupboard fronts, you probably want to put lighting in the cupboards to give them a presence.”
The pair almost always favour antique or vintage decorative lighting over contemporary fittings. “Apart from technical lighting, I don’t think we’ve ever bought a contemporary pendant or wall light,” says Jake.
Worktops
Natural materials are central to Create Studio’s approach. “We don’t use quartzite or porcelain and we don’t like tiled surfaces,” reveals Fellner. “For me it’s about how annoying it is to clean. There’s a bit of a trend towards tiled kitchen counters and islands, but it’s a practical nightmare.”
Dellal particularly favours marble. “I like it to be very thick,” she says. “I also like stainless steel, zinc, copper and wood.” While many homeowners shy away from marble because they are worried about its porous nature and tendency to mark, Fellner believes those imperfections are precisely what make a kitchen feel alive. “People are often afraid of marble but my opinion is that it is telling the story of your life.”
Cabinetry
Rather than following the ubiquitous painted Shaker look, Create Studio prefers cabinetry that feels warmer and more tactile. “We use a lot of natural wood, unpainted and just finished with oils,” Fellner explains. That doesn’t mean there is no room for experimentation. “It doesn’t just have to be what the market thinks it wants. We’re doing a kitchen at the moment where we’re trying to figure out how we can build a structure that mixes a light oiled oak with stainless steel fronting,” he adds.
Flooring
Flooring, in Dellal’s view, is one of the easiest places to introduce some colour and personality. “I’m just going through an obsession with reclaimed tiles and the idea of a lot of patina on the floor,” she says. “I think flooring can be your colour in the kitchen, so you can be quite bold. It’s not just about tiles. You can also use rubber floors or micro cement, but make them a colour. Cement tiles are probably my favourite, but then I also like big old floorboards and simply painting them is fine too.”
Furniture
Dining furniture should not feel as though it has just been bought and neither does it need to match, according to Dellal. “Good kitchen chairs can be difficult to find,” she says, “so we go to auctions and collect chairs that we then can place in different kitchens.”
She has a fondness for mid-century pieces. “I particularly like 50s Danish chairs because they are very comfortable. We’ve been building our experience of auction houses and where to find great, old chairs – I think that’s something people overlook.”
Fellner believes this layered approach is what gives a home its character. “Most successful homes feel as though they have been built up over a lifetime.”
Kitchen island
Despite continuing debate about whether kitchen islands are out of fashion, Dellal and Fellner are enthusiastic supporters – providing they suit the room they are in.
“I love a kitchen island because I like the idea of putting a cooker in it so I can cook and talk to the rest of the room,” says Dellal. “I’m not as keen on having a sink there because I don’t want dirty plates building up on the work surface of the kitchen island.”
Fellner sees them as a useful way to subtly define a space. “I think islands can act as a slight reaction to open-plan living. But there are no hard and fast rules. Ultimately we react to the room, the people and their needs.”