Champagne Supernova

Now that cook and food writer Anna Barnett lives in an apartment full of luxe touches, does she still like a good party? Ask Ted the dog…

- Jo Leevers

It’s Ted the dog who gives the game away. As Anna Barnett pops open a bottle of fizz, his ears go up and he trots straight over. ‘Whenever he hears that sound, he knows he’ll get the cork,’ smiles Anna. ‘He likes to gnaw on them, like a bone.’ Ted is a hound who is clearly accustomed to a champagne lifestyle. As the go-to cook, blogger and food writer for fabulous food and entertaining ideas, Anna Barnett is getting ready for the festive season in her east London flat. She and her husband, Thom Archer, who works in media recruitment, bought this apartment in a former Victorian school 18 months ago and have since turned it into a cool, sophisticated home.

Anna and Thom immediately loved the huge windows and abundance of natural light they created. The layout? Not so much. For a start, the old kitchen was shoehorned into a dark corner, and a bedroom and a staircase took up half of the ground floor. ‘This seemed like a wasted opportunity, so we reclaimed the entire ground floor as a living, entertaining and cooking space, which is much more “us”,’ says Anna.