Veneta Cucine - Italian Modular Kitchens

This is a long due post. Veneta Cucine was one of the first modular kitchens I visited with an intention for exploration and possible purchase. When I had just started exploring modular kitchens, I  remember being  aware of Veneta Cucine and possibly 1 or 2 more. I assume that is because of their marketing efforts and top of the mind recall.

Courtesy: Veneta Cucine

The initial visit and follow-up was good. Although I had walked in without an appointment, I was guided around by an able sales manager . Of all the modular kitchens I have visited , I must say that  I liked her personality and attitude the best. She had this overall vibe of genuine interest without overselling or being snooty like few others; which is a pity because we did not make the final buy and also we came across one serious negative feedback on Mouthshut.com. Recently I also came across few others, which would obviously be worrying to any customer looking to purchase. Thankfully there is some semblance of response from Veneta Cucine on some of these reviews. However, these responses should have been there on the site well before and for all the feedback against genuine purchases.

While the whole world and its businesses are going digital it is ironic to see several brands being

Courtesy: Veneta Cucine

unable to use digital well. Just setting up a Twitter handle or a Facebook page doesn’t cut it. Do you actively manage it? And by that I don’t mean posting pretty pictures and garnering likes from your own team. It means being able to respond to new customers for their queries and helping older customers with their feedback and issues. Not responding and ignoring a customer would scare off other potentials and being defensive in your response would not really help. If I feel that you as a brand and a vendor will not support me during my time of need then I am really better off without hiring you by making a purchase. As far as modular kitchens are concerned this is a space where a lot of improvement needs to be made. But it’s heartening to see the new startups like Capricoast, HomeLane figure out customer acquisition and handling the digital space a bit better than their older counterparts. I was also pleased to see Espiq Kuchen reaching out to an aggrieved customer on my blog.

Anyhow I digress. The sales manager showed us the different models, shutter finishes and explained

Courtesy: Veneta Cucine

how some design elements could help us. Of all the Italian kitchens that I have viewed, Veneta Cucine probably has a larger variety of colors available and that is attractive to many Indian customers. I remember seeing an edgy design in lavender, a nice one in lime green and one shade which looked like a mix of ochre yellow and orange. Unlike the German or Northern European brands which tend to restrict themselves mostly to white and wooden finishes, the range of colors available among Italian brands is usually higher. So if this is of considerable importance to you, you might want to restrict your search to them. As far as material is concerned, the usual laminate ( and mono-faced lacquer), PVC  high gloss , lacquer & veneer, tempered lacquered glass and solid wood options are available in increasing order of price.

One of the constraints of ordering with Veneta Cucine is that you need to purchase the kitchen appliances ( hob, oven, chimney hood, sink and faucet) from their in-house brand VC Plus. They do work with other brands Foster , Smeg, Falmec, Electrolux, Siemens, Whirlpool but it is possible that the price of VC Plus will be lower than all of these brands. Whirlpool could be lower actually. Their Indian website lists prices of appliances which is a dream because I do not need to visit their store, call up or email to inquire prices. Wish other brands would be smart enough to do that. The sink and faucet cannot be purchased from external brands. What I do not recall is whether customers can purchase appliance brands outside the list of names mentioned above.

Courtesy: Veneta Cucine

 Veneta Cucine charges an upfront price of 10,000/- for a quotation with design. This is absorbed/refunded ( please check ) in the final price if you purchase your kitchen from them. This is the norm with several modular kitchen brands. If you are checking out few brands, you obviously cannot be spending 10k at every store. Hence, the workaround would be to take a print-out of your floor plan, ask for average/starting prices of cabinets ( base, wall, tall/midi units) and few other stuff that you will definitely need, when you are getting the sales pitch/tour. Also ask them to look at your floor plan and give you a rough estimate and then add the cost of appliances (usually around 1.5L, countertop (30-40k) and any accessories). For us the initial quote was highest among others and as a result we never went back for a detailed quote. However, there is always a possibility to ask the designer to match your budget.

People generally tend to post their feedback usually in extreme of circumstances and more when they have had a negative experience and in rare occasions, when they have had a positive experience beyond expectation. What we do not know is the percentage of these failings. If you knew that Vendor 1 performed miserably 10 times for 100 sales and Vendor 2 performed badly once for 10 overall transactions, whom would you choose? There is no easy answer unfortunately.

Location in Bangalore

Veneta Cucine is located in Indiranagar and Jayanagar. Check out the exact location here.

Email:

support@ccindia.net

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Del Tongo and Ballerina Kuchen from Grandeur Interiors

Courtesy: Grandeur Interiors

If you happen to visit the stretch of Inner Ring Road very near to Domlur, you will come across loads of shops relevant to decorating your house including showrooms for modular kitchens, wardrobes, lights etc. I had already visited this area in the past for Alno and happened to see the relocated Cucine Lube Kitchens recently too.

Courtesy: Grandeur Interiors

While visiting one of the tile shops , Tileprint ( yes your work is not done with designing and ordering a kitchen!), I chanced upon Grandeur Interiors showroom and decided to look around since I was shopping for modular wardrobes at that point of time. For some reason I felt that the brand felt familiar but I could not place it. Going back home, I realized I had come across Grandeur Interiors in my Elle Decor magazine. Of course the Mumbai showroom was advertised but it did help me in discovering the brand some time back. Even in the day of overload of information on the Internet and social media, I have gained  most if not all of information  from these different magazines which is why I think it is more helpful to write a section on your projects, than advertising a lot and achieving few clicks online which might never translate to action.

Courtesy: Grandeur Interiors

Whenever I visit the branded showrooms, I realize that the kitchens towards the higher end of the pricing range might fit the tag of "designer kitchens" more than the starting ones. That's common sense too. Most of the furniture in Grandeur would probably fall into the tag of "designer furniture". However with the good design the price also increases proportionately . Unfortunately I simply cannot remember the prices  of the modular kitchens, or it is possible that I did not ask for the prices of the kitchens. The wardrobe pricing was comparable to some of the pricing in the SEA Bauformat, higher end range of Arte-M wardrobes and few of the Loddenkemper wardrobes ; they looked very pretty even though one of the wardrobes had this really bright orange lacquer finish that I wouldn't typically dream of having in my house. I guess that's the effect of good looking furniture on oneself.

Courtesy: Grandeur Interiors

Grandeur Interiors has Italian modular kitchens from Del Tongo and German modular kitchens from Ballerina Kuchen. From whatever info I have gleaned over the past few years the German and Italian modular kitchen brands form few of the majorly used brands all over the world. In fact among the German brands, there are few that account for most of the sales among those brands. While Ballerina doesn't fall under those mass brands, it is a brand of repute and has presence all over in Asia , Europe and some parts of Africa.

Courtesy: Grandeur Interiors

Also, Grandeur has some lovely accent furniture pieces that you could also pick up. And if the prices are too high, you could always search for similar looking pieces on the ecommerce furniture sites :). 






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Sleek Modular Kitchens

I chanced upon a second setup of Sleek modular kitchens and was wondering about what they were doing differently. How is it that the 2-3 people who sit around the kitchens are totally disinterested in any sort of customer interaction and hence any opportunity for leads and subsequent conversion. I assume it relates to the way their incentive is structured and after my repeated experience, I am obviously curious.

Copyright: Sleek modular kitchen

The funny thing is that my first visit to Sleek kitchens was very similar. It was at a different HomeStop outlet ( maybe Sleek has worked some arrangement with HomeStop though I doubt that gives them any projects automatically) and there were 2 men and a woman working on their laptops. We were exploring around and were months away from deciding which brand to go ahead. 

I looked around, pulled some drawers and checked the kitchens. Then men didn't bother and the woman glanced. I was wondering when someone would come around and explain what they offered etc. So I tried giving the " I am interested, please come and explain looks." I was really surprised but since I wanted to know the type of finish used in one and the approximate price, I went up to the guy sitting closest to the kitchens and asked him. Few questions ahead, I realized that he neither had sufficient knowledge and nor was he interested. After I explicitly asked him to show us around, and he reluctantly got up, the woman thankfully took over. She was the Sales Manager and adept in her knowledge of the kitchens and everything around it. She took our contact details, sent me approximate quotations and even pursued me for a while. 

However, I also remember a defensive attitude during the follow-ups. "I called because you said you might decide in few months". Really?? If I want the customer to buy the modular kitchen from my brand, I will call because I want to convert them and not because of any other reason. As far as the brand is concerned, if I was a decision making authority I would actually just keep 1 knowledgeable sales person around and remove the unfriendly fixtures to some other office location. Judging from Mouthshut, I am not the only person who feels the same.

The experience continued with the website. I tried to download the catalogue unsuccessfully  by entering my details several times. And I was unable to get a catalogue emailed to myself. While the website looks great, I actually don't know why they maintain several websites like  http://www.sleekworld.com, http://sleekworld.co.in and http://sleekkitchens.com/modular-kitchen. I am hoping they stopped at 3 and there aren't more lurking around.

Copyright : Sleek modular kitchen

As quoted, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I did get some help in the form of a friend  who had purchased their Sleek modular kitchens. While the kitchen was very nice and he is happy , I got to know that the overall experience was not smooth. The different folks who take care of the various activities weren't in sync. He also had to  call some senior folks to get work done in time. However they did take care of damaged modules and that sounds like a life-saver. If interested, one can get an idea of their positive customer experiences on their website. If you do order a Sleek modular kitchen, my friend's advice is try to figure who will be the team servicing you and get some references.

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Italian modular kitchens from Scavolini

Courtesy: Scavolini

In my search for other stuff related to house interiors, I usually chance upon different stores who also take care of modular kitchens. A lot of these stores have come up ( or have been advertised or known to me ) slightly after the long search for a modular kitchen brand ended. While it is a shame that I wasn't able to look at all of these before, it could also be a blessing in disguise. Too much of choice confuses most humans (including myself) and I doubt I would have been able to take a good decision. Also dear partner would have finally protested at the "torture" of accompanying me everywhere and trying to smile through everything. One such brand was Scavolini. I remember searching for it initially, ending up at another store on Inner Ring Road and finally giving up.

In Bangalore, Sai Gallerium is the dealer for Scavolini kitchens. Sai is already well known for their collection of imported tiles and accessories. They store numerous other brands and we managed to have look at a Versace dining table along with huge mirror and decor elements full of bling along with it. Since the Facebook page for Scavolini by Sai has started posting from Jan 2015 I assume they have been set up some time before it.

We managed to have a cursory look at the kitchens and I liked the one with a mossy green

Courtesy: Scavolini

lacquer wall cabinets and dark wood base cabinets. And as in all Italian kitchens, there are numerous colours like orange, pink, purple and others available. However what I was really floored by was the Caesarstone countertop one of the kitchens. Unfortunately these are pricier than the usual granite and Corian countertops but are less porous and hence vulnerable to stains, visible seams than a granite countertops. Caesarstone is not 100% natural like a granite in case that matters for you. In India, Hafele is the official partner for Caesarstone brand but a lot of modular kitchen brands, including Scavolini also offer this as an option for the countertop.

My learnings from the European Kitchen Design blog made me think that Scavolini would be on the pricier side and I still don't have solid data to confirm or reject that. However, I got to know that a very basic kitchen starts at 2.5L but it would be best to visit Sai Gallerium, have a look and discuss with the designers if possible.

Sai Gallerium is present at 100 Feet Road Indirangar, Banashankari and Banaswadi. You can look up their addresses and contact numbers at their Contact page.

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Renting furniture not Kitchens

This blog is/was about my tryst with modular kitchens. But the tryst now seems to extend to other furniture required for the new house. Since the only essential furniture missing from our collection is a wardrobe, we have been trying to look at options. As usual, I am not fond of most of what I see around. The ones that catch my fancy are going to eat into the budget for other items. Also there is the dilemma of "to hire an interior designer or not". Since I am aware that few areas of the house will have complicated carpentry and decor, I am in favour of hiring a designer who can deal with the carpenters and anybody else. However, many interior designers  prefer a full turnkey project as opposed to working on few specific areas. So the conflicts continue and dear partner thinks the easy way out, is to invest in nothing at all till we are decided and have greater liquidity.  I haven't disagreed but that hasn't stopped me from doing my homework or getting aggressive with my short-term investments.

Copyright : Furlenco

Nevertheless, quite some time back, I  came across a 'startup' for renting out furniture, Furlenco, when it was possibly still named as RentUrDuniya . These days, the term startup seems to be used very freely and I am not too keen when people use this term to define new companies that provide existing solutions with a user interface. However, the world doesn't care for my opinions or for Neil Blumenthal's opinion ( co-CEO and co-founder of Warby Parker) . Neither do venture capitalists and their assorted ilk who pour in truckloads of money to hedge their investments and make sure that they do not miss out on the next big thing. 

Irrespective of definitions and reasons behind funding, what actually matters in the real

Copyright : Furlenco

world is whether something is useful and I think Furlenco is. It helps to solve a common problem in  cities like Bangalore which is home to increasing number of students, professionals and expats. If they do things correctly and deliver great customer experience from start to end in terms of product and service they should turn out to be very successful. Right now Furlenco offers limited furniture in Living, Dining, Bedrooms and I am hoping they increase the categories and specifics ( remember I needed a wardrobe). I thought I read about an experience centre or something like that but I can't seem to find that info again. However, the pricing is worth testing it out and if the furniture turns out 90% like what it appears on the website then, my not so low expectations will be met. 

Copyright : Pepperfry

The catty comment on the gap between seeing the furniture on websites vs seeing the furniture in real life is from my own experience. After furniture buying moved online, lazy souls like myself heaved a sigh of relief. Nice furniture at okayish prices, in fact some seemed to be a steal at the prices they were advertised. So I spent time gazing on UrbanLadder, Pepperfry and FabFurnish. Recently I managed to visit a small retail store of FabFurnish and realized with deep sadness in my heart, that a lot of the furniture on display aren't as nice as they appear on the websites. A lot, not all. Any bias towards UrbanLadder is due to their well-designed website which has limited number of options ( choice overwhelms and confuses users ) and also because I feel they have taken the time to scale up well too.

Anyhow, I am digressing. Coming back to rentals, Furlenco isn't the first company to offer rentals. There are plenty of shops in Frazer Town, Shivajinagar where you can do the same. If you prefer shopping online, then some companies like Home Essentials,  RentalWala ( not only furniture), Rentongo, RFC Rentals, Rentech Designs also provide an interface for customers. I am yet to come across modular kitchens that are rented out though I don't see why some enterprising team/company can't make it work; especially since modular kitchens on display can be bought off ( and at discount ) if they match your general layout or if you can make it work.

If you have used any furniture rental company, it would be helpful to know about your experience.

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Gilma Spagnolia - Now at Discount!

Courtesy: Gilma Modular Kitchens

I visited the Gilma Spagnolia modular kitchen showroom at Indiranagar the second time. A big difference since the last time I visited it. Unlike before, they have an adept sales person who is not overtly pushy but helpful enough; a far cry from the lady I met previously. But less about the lady and her faux pas and more about the kitchens.

There are few kitchens on display with different finishes and configurations. The showroom is smaller than other brands and hence the number of kitchens on display is also lower. The positive effect of this is lesser confusion. I remember getting very confused at the Veneta Cucine and Nolte showrooms when I visited them. GilmaSpagnolia sells Italian kitchens (Spagnolia is their Italian brand) and Indian kitchens. The Indian kitchens are locally manufactured in India while the Italian kitchens are imported totally. Prices of Indian kitchens are obviously lower. I think starting price for a 10 X 8 kitchen was quoted at `3 Lakh for an Indian kitchen and `4.5 Lakh for an Italian kitchen. 

However, if you want lot of variety and colors, then the Italian kitchens are a better bet.

Courtesy: Gilma Modular Kitchens

There are a wide variety of finishes like glossy lacquer, membrane (includes a PVC foil over the MDF without edge banding), glass and wood. The doors have soft closing and better finishes.Very typically, the kitchen with a wood finish is designed in a typical country style and similar chimneys. I can’t remember the exact pricing but it is probably around `8 Lakh without appliances. While I loved most of the Italian kitchens on display, the bigger kitchens caught my fancy. One of them was a black glossy lacquer with a curved island, white glossy lacquer with a huge island and a dark wooden laminate one.

For people interested in buying a kitchen soon, the renovation of the GilmaSpagnolia showroom would be an interesting opportunity. The kitchens on display would be available at a considerable discount. In fact quite a few modular kitchen brands sell their kitchens on display at a discount. I am aware of Hacker and Nolte and now Gilma is a revelation. Of course, this will work for you only if the measurements of your kitchen space are comparable and the cabinets can be mapped into your kitchen layout.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating and in case of modular kitchens, it depends on the product and the service (design efforts, installation and after sales). While the designs and colors of the kitchens are attractive, I wasn’t very impressed with the shelving material in few of the kitchens (laminate and membrane). One can get an idea of the service from checking out  Mouthshut.com or inquiring with their past customers. The latter is preferred because most of us do not take the time to write a glowing review if satisfied. However this particular review on Mouthshut is probably enough to scare one away.

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How we ended up choosing Haecker Kitchens

Courtesy: Hacker Kitchens India

I was planning to write couple of posts but procrastination got the better of me. Last year we finalized upon
the modular kitchen brand to go ahead with. Ironically it was one I never thought I would.

We spent quite a bit of 2013 trying to visit different modular kitchen brands ( on my list ) and trying to get a feel for them. A lot of the visits initially left us confused but after couple of visits we had a fair idea. I think it would have really helped us to have visited the stores over a shorter span of time. Some of the visits like Home Town, Cucine Lube, Sleek, Espiq , Scavolini ( @ Sunrise Home Solutions ) were more of walk-ins because we discovered their presence in a mall. We also visited others like Veneta Cucine, Nolte, Hacker, Alno, Gilma Spagniola respectively.

Courtesy: Hacker Kitchens India

We had some initial discussion with Sleek, Veneta Cucine and Nolte . Sleek and Veneta Cucine even went ahead and gave us an approximate quotation based on our kitchen plan whereas Nolte was insistent on waiting till they could visit the site, do accurate measurements and give us a quote. I would have to appreciate both Sleek and Veneta Cucine for their slight aggressiveness to convert it to a deal; especially where the other folks were mildly interested. Of course our flat delivery timelines were to blame. By this time we had decided on our top 3 brands that we would approach when the time was ripe and they were - Nolte, Hacker and Veneta Cucine.

 I tried looking all over the web for customer reviews and stories of experience to find none. Mouthshut.com had a scathing and scary review of an experience of Veneta Cucine. Thankfully I also managed to chance upon European Kitchen Design blog which is written by a guy named "kitchenguy". If you are looking for some serious research on European brands, you should check out his posts ( and more importantly the comments) on European brands, his personal top 20 and the 101 on Laminates and Lacquer. We did manage to get a better idea of the brands even though it finally boils down to the dealer and service. If you see more German brands being recommended, then do remember that the a lot of the top (and large) modular kitchen brands in the world are German, have been around for about a century. But there are others too , depending on which spectrum of the price range you are looking at. And this spectrum is highly divided mind you.

Courtesy: Hacker Kitchens India

Some time back,  our builder offered  us an option where they would   have wardrobe and modular kitchens done from Nolte Express (from Nolte brand), Interwood ( Indian brand operated by the same owners of the Alno dealership in Bangalore and Impuls (from Alno). As usual, we were given a timeline to decide in order to avail of the discounted prices which already seemed a bit on the higher side. Unfortunately for us we liked the exteriors and design of both Interwood and Impuls and the interiors of Impuls and Nolte. However, Impuls was well over our budget.Although we were getting very little from Nolte in terms of offerings. Since we had liked Nolte a lot during our first visit and I had a bias towards it , we thought slight changes would help. We did visit the store and although they were patient and helpful, we never got the revised quotes and were also put off by a lot of things. 

Anyhow door-bitching or a version of it seems to be available at most German modular kitchen stores so please pull out your Ralph Laurens before you visit them.Long story short, we also visited Alno store again. (The first visit was a very good one and we had a great experience. Would really recommend the sales guy.) Due to the tie-up with our builder and because they ( or perhaps our builder ) were scared that if we sit with the designer during the tweaking of the kitchen design, we might figure out the actuals behind the pricing model, we were unable to communicate with satisfaction. The whole thing of not being able to sit was the designer was absolutely ridiculous because it was very easy to do the back calculation well ahead and realize that we were getting a negligible discount. Trying to outsmart your customers ( or potential customers) doesn't really help.

Image copyright: Koel Das

Alno's loss was Hacker's gain. By chance I had called them up to figure out the process of getting a quotation. Some brands insist on paid consultations for detailed design. Usually this is refunded if you choose the brand. Hacker sent us a quote nearer to what we were initially looking at. The design and the quote were reasonable and the designer spent sufficient time with us to give us a design within the budget we required. She was very patient and helpful and would even point out what would be expensive and out of bounds and where they could help us. The only thing that we felt queasy about was paying 75% of the cost upfront and 25% later during arrival of the kitchen at the sea port. All this is paid upfront and you are yet to see the kitchen in real life. Installation happens when it reaches your city and when you are ready to do it ( ie. flat is available, etc ).  Of course we went through the initial payments and they also helped us with the timelines  and even with last minute tweaks. 

Image copyright: Koel Das

I guess looking back, it was the comfort of being able to sit with the designer, communicate what we wanted,needed and could afford. We were never pushed to buy a higher priced module which I genuinely appreciate. We had been very specific about our requirements and affordability with Nolte and Alno, and hence I find it ironic that they couldn't identify us as serious buyers. End of design phase with Hacker, I could even point out what changes could have been made to reduce the price of the kitchen offered by Impuls (Alno). Obviously a designer would have been able to do it better. We did however need to remind the designer to send the appliances, skirting and few other fittings during installation, and in times of conflict the scheduling manager seemed to be influenced by whoever (customers requiring installation) made the most noise. All of this can be managed with some prior planning obviously.

The appliances are all from Hafele Nagold with few from the Nagold J series. The sink  and faucet are from Franke and the countertop is a Shitake Caesarstone (for which Hafele India is the sole dealer). There are very few installers for this engineered quartz and they do an amazing job with the mitre edge. You can barely see the join.The pendant lights are inspired from the Tom Dixon collection and were purchased from Ivanka Lumiere.

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