Your home is the place you retreat to every night. Your respite from the outside world. So, there’s every reason to put the time, money and effort into creating a space that works for your needs – and in which you (and anyone who happens to pass through) can really enjoy luxuriating. We asked the experts for their top tips for elevating a space, whether it’s a sprawling countryside estate or a minimal one-bed apartment in the city.

One could argue that being a chef is all about making other people feel good. Mr Anthony Bourdain once famously said, “anyone who’s a chef, who loves food, ultimately knows that all that matters is: ‘Is it good? Does it give pleasure?’”. The very act of cooking a meal for someone – whether in a restaurant, or at home – is a nurturing, nourishing gesture. Which leaves us wondering: where do those people who feed others for a living turn to, when they want to receive, rather than give? To attempt to answer that question, we’ve asked seven of our favourite restaurateurs where they love eating. From low-key go-tos for home-cooked comfort food to the hotspots they visit for culinary inspiration.

Mr Maximilian Hurd had a unique request when he was house hunting for his now London home. “I knew exactly what I wanted, which was a house with a hallway big enough to house my favourite painting, originally bought by my parents for our childhood home in Brazil,” he says. “It’s over two metres long and finding a property in London with enough wall space was tricky, but I was adamant that I would not be sending it back into the dreaded storage. So, when I opened the front door and saw the wall, I knew I was home.” The property is a Victorian workman’s cottage in northwest London – built to house the expanding workforce during the industrial revolution – and retains some of the original features, with contemporary additions to add space, like a loft conversion and side return added by previous owners. But the singular style has been entirely overhauled by Hurd. “English country house in miniature or, as I once referred to it, Marie Antoinette meets Oscar Wilde by way of a Brazilian bordello,” is his one-line description.

Mr Fred Hechinger couldn’t take a break right now even if he wanted to. Since the actor’s debut in Mr Bo Burnham’s 2018 indie masterpiece Eighth Grade, Hechinger has been booked back-to-back by some of Hollywood’s finest auteurs. There were striking performances in Oscar-winning director Mr Barry Jenkins’ The Underground Railroad and Mr Joe Wright’s The Woman In The Window. Then it was his pitch-perfect portrayal of the privileged and self-pitying screenager Quinn Mossbacher in The White Lotus season one that catapulted his star skywards. Hechinger’s talent for playing dark and sometimes disturbed characters undoubtedly caught the director Sir Ridley Scott’s eye when it came to casting him as the maniacal Emperor Caracalla in Gladiator II. Picking up where Mr Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus left off two decades earlier, Caracalla and his brother Geta (Stranger Things’ Mr Joseph Quinn) preside over Rome as lawless co-emperors. Literally taking no prisoners.

Your home is the place you retreat to every night. Your respite from the outside world. So, there’s every reason to put the time, money and effort into creating a space that works for your needs – and in which you (and anyone who happens to pass through) can really enjoy luxuriating. We asked the experts for their top tips for elevating a space, whether it’s a sprawling countryside estate or a minimal one-bed apartment in the city.

One could argue that being a chef is all about making other people feel good. Mr Anthony Bourdain once famously said, “anyone who’s a chef, who loves food, ultimately knows that all that matters is: ‘Is it good? Does it give pleasure?’”. The very act of cooking a meal for someone – whether in a restaurant, or at home – is a nurturing, nourishing gesture. Which leaves us wondering: where do those people who feed others for a living turn to, when they want to receive, rather than give? To attempt to answer that question, we’ve asked seven of our favourite restaurateurs where they love eating. From low-key go-tos for home-cooked comfort food to the hotspots they visit for culinary inspiration.