The Cutting Board Dining Table

The best old kitchen tables were quietly clever, and this one has a trick most people miss, what look like drawers are not drawers at all. Pull at either end and a thick cutting board slides out, and behind each one sits an open compartment for storing whatever the cook needed close, all hidden until you go looking for it. Found in central France and dating to the 19th century, it stands on square legs joined by a low stretcher, the wood bare and worn from a lifetime of kitchen work, and in all our sourcing we have never come across another quite like it. Sylvie uses it as a kitchen island, the boards pulled out for bread and cheese and the storage behind them holding everything a working kitchen needs within reach.