Two years ago, Holly Wulff Petersen and Renée Kemps met while taking a photo workshop “in the middle of nowhere in Sweden.” The two foodies started talking about opening their own kitchen photography studio, “fully functional for cooking,” says Renée, “but definitely made to be beautiful for shoots.”
Between then and now, Renée, who is Dutch and only 24 years old, finished her degree in English at the University of Amsterdam and won the Saveur blog award for food photography (see her blog). And Holly, 31 and from Ireland, continued her studies in cooking and nutrition while also becoming a stylist and photographer. The two recently joined forces and rented an 800-square-foot space in East London. Ponying up an initial £10,000 pounds ($12,660) each?and along the way, spending considerably more?they designed the kitchen of their dreams. Ours, too. Come see. Photography by Holly Wulff Petersen and Renée Kemps of Rye London.

Above: “Nordic, minimalist, and natural, but still cozy and warm,” is how Renée and Holly describe the look they were after. Their studio, Rye London, occupies the top floor of a former print factory with high ceilings and exposed brick walls.
“Our space was old, not well taken care of, and filled with fake walls and dead electrical cables,” they tell us. “We stripped it down, ripped out four layers of flooring, and started with an empty canvas.”

Above: Holly and René...