By Jeff Vasishta | Variety

The kitchen is, quite literally, the engine room of a home. It’s the place where the owners’ practical heavy lifting gets done — cooking, cleaning and consuming of food, plus heart-to-heart conversations, casual entertaining, family gatherings and more.

Gourmet kitchens don’t necessarily mean that gourmet chefs will be using them (though many celebrities do employ full- or part-time personal chefs.) Most famous folks are meticulous about their diet and prepare their own meals, counting macros, blending, baking, boiling. Does the highest of the high-end equipment make you a better chef? Probably not, but when the rest of your home costs millions, a mediocre kitchen would simply be out of place.

And yes, high-end kitchens are ridiculously expensive. Designer appliances such as La Cornue ranges can cost up to a brain-scrambling $500,000. But that brand’s models are all hand crafted in the small French town of Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône with a customer’s family crest or name, which clearly appealed to the French aristocracy when the company was founded 100 years ago.

Even if you don’t want to spend six figures on your range, other luxury brands such as Wolf, Sub-Zero, Dacor, Miele, and Viking can cost tens of thousands. And when you throw wine coolers, glass-fronted refrigerators, steam and induction ovens and knock to open dishwashers (yes, really!) — the numbers can get remarkably silly.

When it comes to décor, kitchens have traveled light years. Cabinets and countertops are now a myriad of colors and textures, from racing car red to black faux crocodile skin. Counters, too run the gamut from marble and quartz to soapstone, butcher block, stainless steel and concrete.

Whether they cook themselves or pay a private chef a small fortune to whip up three meals a day, when A-listers buy homes they typically seek spacious kitchens reflective of up-to-date design trends and chock-a-block with exotic finishes and state-of-the-art culinary accouterment. Just look at these eight enviably appointed celebrity kitchens.