This kitchen in a converted Milan farmhouse with its simple racetrack layout (focussing all the attention on the task at hand instead of the wide screen TV in the next room perhaps?) is another instance of the trend back to a more well-mannered approach to domestic planning. And with dedicated dining rooms disappearing fast, it just has to make sense to put more not less visual separation between cooking, with all its inevitable creative clutter, on the one hand, and the closely related, but altogether more leisurely, pursuit of dining on the other. Especially when the results might end up looking as sleek and, well, open as this.