Inside Joshua Weissman’s Minimalist Texas Home | Open Door | Architectural Digest

Today, AD is welcomed by chef and YouTuber Joshua Weissman to tour his minimalist home in Austin, Texas. It’s often said the kitchen is the heart of the home, and with nearly 9 million subscribers following his gastronomical YouTube content, Weissman’s kitchen doesn’t disappoint. The YouTube star’s knives (his prized possessions) are proudly displayed along magnetized blocks, and Italian Carrara countertops add a luxurious feel. But more important than style is the function of his space. Though maybe not the most beautiful of stoves, Weissman cannot beat the performance of his Wolf. And then there’s Weissman’s cabinets, organized to perfection to save time and thought when he could be cooking up a storm. “The number one thing that’s important about a really great kitchen is not its size or how nice it is; it is about how you organize yourself and how you operate in that kitchen, so that you can actually enjoy the process of cooking,” he says. “Instead of having to think so much, I can think with my eyes.”

See more of Joshua Weissman’s Austin home here: https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/chef-joshua-weissman-austin-home-kitchen-organization

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“Skull Abstraction III,”Handmade in Ojai, CA | Nicholas Ali | Duo Luto

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– Oh AD, a little early, but come on in. [cheerful music] Hello. Welcome to my home. I obviously don’t live in a kitchen. This is where I actually live. The kitchen is over there, but we’ll get to that after we get to know each other. This house is really interesting.

It was custom built by Matt Fajkus, very cool architecture firm in Austin. It is a modern interpretation of an Ad Stenger home. If you don’t know Ad Stenger, you don’t know architecture. I’m just kidding. I actually don’t know that much about architecture, but I did learn about Ad Stenger.

He’s actually responsible for a lot of really interesting homes in the Austin area. If you like Austin, Texas, you like those Austin vibes, you can think Mr. Stenger. What really struck me and made this feel like a home is the wood ceilings. This is all natural Brazilian hardwood.

I think it brings a lot of warmth into the room, right? If that ceiling was just a white ceiling, it wouldn’t be as welcoming, as inviting, you know? I like that. Let’s talk about the living room for a second. I’m a big couch guy. When you sit on this couch, oh, sorry.

Lemme go put this away. One second. We’ll just leave that over there. I have one rule about the couch. No work is to be done on the couch. This one I do allow work in. This one is allowed just only phone work. Look at this. Look how natural this is.

I’m texting, I’m making phone calls. I’m taking Google Meets. So this is my sort of like warmup. If it’s really cold outside, I’ll pop the fireplace on. What I would recommend is if you do have a fireplace like this, do yourself a favor and don’t lose the remote.

For example, I lost the remote. I did manage to turn it on, but it was not easy, okay. This is less about heating up the room and more about heating up the vibes. Let’s move on to the kitchen. [upbeat music] All right. I know you wanna see my kitchen. Let’s take a gander.

So let me show you some of my favorite things. This usually to just be like typical white quartz, and then I felt like this house is too nice to just have plain white countertops. And so I decided to invest a little bit of money and I got these really great Carrara marble countertops,

And I think it looks good. You tell me. You think it looks good? If you don’t like it, you can tell me. It’s fine. It’s not gonna hurt my feelings. I like it. This is a countach. This is a Lamborghini Countach. I’m a Lamborghini fan boy. What do you want from me?

Okay, I love that brand. I actually got a chance to go to the Lamborghini lounge. When I went in there, they have all these little cars that are on the wall to represent all the colors that they make, and they make a lot of colors.

And the guy that let me in there was so kind to let me, I don’t wanna say steal, but permanently borrow this. Now I know people get really, really up in arms about what kind of stove should you use, Josh. I’m gonna help you out. I got you on this one, okay.

Listen, you can go the more architectural route and get a La Cornue new and spend a ton of money. But you know what? It’s never gonna have the performance of a Wolf. It just won’t. It’s little baby burners that look beautiful. Now La Cornue is never gonna sponsor me, but whatever.

To me, La Cornue is more of like a sheep in wolf’s clothing. This is a Wolf in wolf’s clothing. I got a problem with knives. This is one 10th of my knife collection. I love kitchen knives. All of them feel different, all of them work differently, right? These are like my prize possessions.

These knives though, are one of a kind. Look, you can get them from somewhere, but not from a store. This comes from a guy, one of my buddies actually, Jody Hale. He owns a company called Pie Cutlery, and he makes all these by hand.

I mean, this man is an artist. Look at this. That’s art. [upbeat music] Look, obviously, I love this kitchen. This is a really nice kitchen. But the number one thing that’s important about a great kitchen, it’s not its size or how nice it is, it is about the way you organize yourself

And how you operate in that kitchen. To organize where everything is, is gonna take your mind off the process of, oh, where’s this? Oh, where’s that? I’m running around the kitchen. So that you can actually enjoy the process of cooking and make a meal that you’re proud of,

Or make a meal for your friends and actually have fun cooking, because that ultimately is what really matters when it comes to a great kitchen. Anybody can organize like this. You just need some air tech containers, some stickers and a couple hours. But I promise you,

It is the best time investment I can imagine. The main benefit is that I can see everything I need to use. So instead of having to think so much, I can think with my eyes and make a decision quickly while I’m cooking. And also, look, let’s be honest, clean workstation, clean mind,

Dirty workstation, dirty mind. This feels so clean. I think it might even be dirty. [upbeat music] And always in a kitchen, you should have a med kit. Big, small, doesn’t matter. Just be prepared, okay. You never know. You, maybe you nick yourself with a knife, you get a burn,

You gotta take care of yourself. Bandages, some cotton swabs, burn kits. This isn’t what you think it is. Okay. You get a cut, you put this on, you can keep working, keep chopping, keeps you from getting blood everywhere. Here’s your meme. There you go. Here’s your meme.

And then obviously I have my bigger, boom. Got all my stuff in here. Another big thing that was very important to me about why I chose this house and why I love this house is the big scaling windows. I love natural light. I love feeling like kind of mixed with the outdoor,

Little bit of the indoor put together. It’s a whole experiential thing because then your backyard kind of becomes a part of the whole house. It’s not just, you know, here’s the inside living room and here’s the backyard. It’s more so it’s all one space. So I feel like I’m simultaneously in the backyard

While I’m comfortably in the air conditioning. In the mornings, the natural light in here is insane. I mean, we’ve got like these big beams of light that almost rung the entire length of the living room. It feels good. And you know, vitamin D is good for you also, by the way.

All right, now that you’ve been in my kitchen, you’ve basically been in my bedroom. So let’s go to the primary. [upbeat music] So we’ve made it to the bedroom. Welcome. Kinda like my kitchen, I like my bedroom space to be clean and to be minimalist and not have a ton of stuff,

But feel livable. I didn’t want a ton of stuff on the walls. I thought why put 50 little things in the wall in the bedroom when we could just put like one real big fun thing? And I actually found this on Etsy. They make this by hand. It’s hand tufted.

They dyed all these different colors and make it in this funky shape. I just thought it looked cool. It brought color into the room. This room is very just like one color. So I thought, well, let’s bring a little bit of nature into it. And speaking of nature,

This kind of helps with the nature element too. When we have these big sort of like sliding doors. The jacuzzi’s right there. The bed is here. We go from in here to out there, we close this, the cat can stay in and watch us have fun. When you wake up in the morning

And you press the little clicker button and these roll up and the sun’s rising and you’ve got like your backyard and the pizza, and you see, I could probably see Kate over there like eating a bagel. It’s nice to connect to the outside and have that indoor outdoor experience. I like feeling openness.

And this room isn’t huge, but this window makes it feel as big as a backyard. [upbeat music] This was one of the last changes that I made, the countertops. We brought exactly the same Italian Carrara marble from in the kitchen to in here. So I have a problem.

I love, I feel like it makes sense, right, I love flavor, I love scents, I love cooking, right? So naturally, I’m pretty into fragrances. I like to have a nice collection. This is probably a quarter of my collection. So I’ve gotten really into collecting different fragrances. It seems like such a silly thing,

But it’s nice to have something for every different occasion, you know. This is the bathtub. I never used this. Actually. I’ve never used it. I’m a shower person, okay? I wanna stand up and get out. I don’t have time to sit in the bathtub.

I love this shower because I have all this space. If I wanna do this, I mean, I don’t know why you would, but I could. [upbeat music] Okay, so now we’re in the bar/library area. That’s what I’m calling it. See, this might just look like a panel of wood,

But this is something special. I’m gonna give you a little story. When I was a kid, in an interview somewhere, like a magazine, Matthew McConaughey set, he goes, “Well, I knew I was doing something good when I got myself and ice machine from Sonic.” And I seeing that. I’m like, “Well, dang,

I really need to start working hard If I want to get a Sonic ice machine.” well, I have a Sonic ice machine now. Really the terminology for it is actually a pebble ice maker. That’s the type of ice that they have, right? But you open this guy up,

Got a little sweet little shovel, and we have our Sonic ice. I love Sonic ice. It is the filet mignon of ice, okay? You take a little piece of this ice and chew on it, and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about, this little pebble here.

There’s nothing better than this in your drink. [cheerful music] Now, a lot of people think I hired an interior designer. It was all, I mean, not to take the credit, but it was really me and my contractor that designed it and my wife also who had a lot of input. I should add.

Originally it was just like plain white, compressed wood cabinetry and a little white desk. That was it. And so it was like this entire quadrant of the house that I never wanted to be in. There’s nothing to do there. So I made it into a space where there’s something to do.

I’m kidding. It’s not always about drinking. It’s more about entertaining. Even if you don’t drink alcohol, we have zero proof stuff for our friends who don’t drink alcohol. We have coffee, cold brew sodas. Now transitioning from the bar to what I’m calling the library. We don’t have a ton of books.

Maybe we need to read more, okay. Most of our books are here. A lot of them are cookbook related. If you’re into cooking and you don’t have the “Modernist Collection,” I’m telling you, it is very expensive, it is very worth it. There’s a lot of really cool techniques and stuff in here.

This area isn’t just for reading or being a library, it’s kind of a chill area. It’s like a second living room. I wanted something that was like cool and relaxing, so you can grab a quick drink, you can come sit down here, or you can sit down on this cool chair.

There’s nothing better than being in a cool chair. This chair is cool. [upbeat music] All right. So now we’re gonna move into my office. Come on in. This wall is a work in progress. Every letter, every note, every recipe, everything that has ever been given to me by another person

That watches my videos or likes my recipes or my books, I keep and I hang up. So I have only a small amount of them here hung up on the wall. But just to give you an idea on some of these, like, you know, I can’t show you this

’cause they told me not to share this family recipe, but it is someone’s family recipe for red bean gumbo from Ryan Rojas. Hey, Ryan. How you doing buddy? Some of ’em have really cool drawings. Like this is the old kitchen that we used to shoot,

And you can actually literally still see the grease from cooking next to the stove on your, I mean, literally there’s grease on it. They did like a sort of this three dimensional art piece of it. This is one of my favorite things. I keep it here as an homage to that kitchen

Where a lot of great things started. I mean, it’s cool because every time I walk into this room, I kind of get a chance to constantly remind myself and reflect on why we’re doing this and how much it means to people. I like cars a lot, you know?

So I’ve got like Lamborghini supercars. This is like Lamborghini Huracan Tecnica. I got my Lamborghini hats. And this is a, I bought this at a antique shop and I just saw it and I was like, “Oh, that’s cool. I can like hide stuff in here,” not that I have anything to hide.

Oh, that’s where I put that. [cheerful music] – Well, AD, you know, you had a great time, you saw my home, my kitchen, my bedroom. Maybe go enjoy the Austin area. Do some standup paddle boarding, grab a breakfast taco. I don’t know. Enjoy yourselves. Eat something good, okay?

Just don’t make me cook it, okay. All right. Love you. Bye. [cheerful music]