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Go inside the beautiful new office and test kitchen of the wildly popular food site Food52
Madeline Stone / Business Insider
If you’re a fan of cooking and food, you’ll definitely be jealous of Food52‘s new digs in New York City.
A bit like a social network exclusively for foodies, Food52 is a recipe site and cooking product marketplace where you can search for meal preparation tips and buy all of the gear you need to cook at home.
Founded by former New York Times Editor Amanda Hesser and food writer Merrill Stubbs in 2009, Food52 has raised a total of $9 million in three rounds of funding from investors 14W, Scripps Network Interactive, Walden Venture Capital, Joanne Wilson, and Gary Vaynerchuk, among others.
We recently paid a visit to Food52′s brand-new headquarters in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City.
From a gorgeous test kitchen to food books all around, we were hungry from the moment we walked in.
One of the first things you’ll notice when you enter Food52′s office is a long, white-walled kitchen where in-house chefs try out recipes to be posted on the site. Finding a building that would allow cooking was a challenge, as most offices don’t allow gas stoves or strong food smells. Food52 uses an induction stove to avoid that.
Each dish that appears on Food52 must be cooked to perfection before it’s photographed. Here, Chef Reggie works on grilling peaches for a kale salad.
Art Director Alexis Anthony works in a small studio nearby, arranging the food to be as photogenic as possible.
And then photographer James Ransom shoots the dishes.
Lots of amazing food gets made in the Food52 test kitchen — and it’s usually up for grabs once the photo shoot is over.
Interior designer Brad Sherman custom-built picnic tables for this area of the office. The Food52 team loved them so much that they’ll be selling the tables and benches on the site, starting in July.
Big cubbies on one side of the room hold everyone’s coats and bags.
The whole Food52 team sits in an open seating arrangement. Sherman custom-made the lighting so that the room didn’t have the typical fluorescent look of an office.
Some workers keep food-focused books on their desks.
Prints of photos taken by Ransom were blown up and hung on the wall.
More of Food52′s team sits at this large table in the center of the room.
Cofounders Merrill Stubbs (left) and Amanda Hesser (right) work next to COO Bridget Williams.
Most of the team-wide meetings happen here. All of the furniture is a mix of high- and low-end, from a couch from Montauk Sofa to a lamp from Urban Outfitters.
On the far side of the room, they had two large bar carts custom-made just for the office. Some of the alcohol was used in past photo shoots, while others get consumed at various Food52 events.
You’ll be able to buy a slightly smaller version of the bar cart on Food52 soon.
A Food52 employee tells us that everyone tends to fight over this conference room, which looks as comfortable as a living room.
There are lots of cookbooks and other food-related reading on the conference room’s shelves.
There are a few other conference rooms — when you close the door, a light and fan automatically turn on so that no one outside the booth can hear your conversation.
A jar of doorknobs serves as decoration in this meeting room.
Mason jars are another nice touch for this set of drawers.
A dinner bell hangs on the wall. Food52 employees ring it whenever they reach a big milestone they want to announce to the whole office.
In addition to the large test kitchen, there’s a separate, smaller kitchen where Food52 employees can cook their lunches. It also has an induction stove.
The kitchen table is a great place to hold a meeting over lunch.
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