European Style Kitchen Designs (ISBN 0764326074)

Not helpful in design:
I bought this book hoping it would provide some design ideas - I am a Cajun cook who is rebuilding the kitchen in my post-Katrina flooded house in New Orleans. The book resembles nothing like the kitchens I've used in France. Rather, the effect is California chic, with very traditionally American cabinetry, marble and granite countertops, "islands" in the middle, and so forth. The sources given in the back of the book are nothing more than a list of American companies in the business of selling high-end domestic kitchen cabinetry and so forth. The words "inspired by" are the dead giveaway that this is not the real thing, and has no value in actual planning for a traditional cook. The photography is very nice. If you enjoy flipping through contemporary design magazines, and you have no interest in really cooking but want a domestic-only kitchen "showplace," maybe you will enjoy this book. Past that, don't bother.

European Style Kitchen Designs:
The book has great pictures to use as a springboard for ideas. The text is minimal.

Just a collection of brochure photos:
This is no more a "book about European Kitchens" than a fistfull of magazine clippings is a book about contemporary designs. The writing is minimal (as another reviewer already mentioned) and ALL the photos are captioned "Courtesy of XXXXX YYYYY Cabinet Works" or "Courtesy of XXXX YYYY Interiors" - you will not find anywhere a "thank you for letting us photograph your home" acknowledgments page - because all of the photos seem to be of staged kitchen displays - not real homes. I have been in many, many family kitchens in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Germany and NONE even remotely resembled these overdone, granite countered, granite islanded, chandelier lit, every-square-inch modular cabineted $100,000 kitchens. All they have of Spain or Tuscany or Classic Rome is a vague scheme of the colors we associate with those styles. The cabinets all have doors with layers of trim and molding that will catch all the dust and grease that a real, working kitchen would dish out. I think they are beautifully designed, but I do not think they are real kitchens in real houses. The book is not what I hoped for; it is just a bound catalog of cabinets, luxury appliances, granite slabs and hanging pot racks.