At the centre of Kevin and Muriel Thornton’s dramatic glass-atriumed kitchen in Ranelagh there’s a La Cornue stove which was handmade in France to exact specifications: in this case twin electric ovens – one for bread and one for roasting – four gas burners and a central hot plate, with soft burnished copper trims, knobs and rail.

It’s a thing of beauty, framed by chunky wooden spice drawers and topped by a sturdy rail from which hang five gleaming copper pans.

“I wanted something like I have in work,” Kevin says, though his wife Muriel points out that the Rorgue stove in his restaurant would almost fill their home kitchen. There is professional kitchen induction running across their home kitchen roof and the fan is outside. “We put in a professional fan there because most of the domestic ones don’t work.”

In addition to the La Cornue, there are two Neff built-in ovens which are being pulled out next week and replaced by a steam oven and a conventional oven by Bauknecht, the German company for which Kevin is a brand ambassador. It's a lot of firepower. "When you're cooking, you need a lot of different temperatures – we use them all to be honest."

The kitchen is a super-tidy, sparkly space, with uncluttered work surfaces and light bouncing in from the glass gallery and roof lights above – and the glass wall looking out to the garden.

The couple have lived in their late 19th century two-storey Victorian house for 15 years. They’d been looking for a long time before finding this handsome home.

“I walked into the house, said to the guy, we’ll buy it, without even saying it to Muriel, and made him an offer,” Kevin says.

Three years ago they worked with architect Katherine Kelliher of Kelliher Miller and builder Derek Hayden to remodel and extend their kitchen diningroom.

It has been turned into a light-filled double height space overlooked by a glass balcony on an upstairs gallery, with a landscaped outdoor space that includes a herb garden. The existing wooden kitchen was resprayed by the Kitchen Shop and new pale granite work tops (set at a much higher height than usual to encourage good chopping posture), were fitted.

There’s a dining table and chairs at the garden end of the room, but the couple, who entertain regularly, more often use the square, 12-seater table in the formal dining room. Crockery and cutlery is stored in metre-wide deep drawers near the concealed dishwasher. “They’re the best thing ever,” Muriel says.

She's a big fan of Nicholas Mosse pottery, which she buys at sales of seconds at the Bennetsbridge shop, and has an impressive collection of big bowls and platters which suit the couple's informal approach to entertaining.

“We don’t really eat out a lot. On Sundays we like to have a big gang over.”

Their invitations must be much sought-after.

“Yeah, but people don’t like returning them,” Muriel says with a laugh. “They don’t want to cook for Kevin, which is a bit of a pain.”

Kevin says he favours a simple approach when cooking at home and offers his roast chicken recipe: free-range chicken, cooked for 14 hours at 52 degrees, with the oven turned up to 200 for the final 15 minutes. “Is that safe for domestic cooks to do?” I ask.

“Of course it is, just check that it’s cooked. Sure I’m domestic when I’m here.”

Kevin Thornton is chef patron of Thornton's Restaurant, Dublin 2