Creativity is what’s cooking

If cooking a Thanksgiving feast spurs you to put a new kitchen atop your holiday wish list, consider this shopping destination: the new Alno Pasadena showroom, which actually is in Sierra Madre. The innovative, loft-like space showcases the German manufacturer’s clever ideas for cabinetry, such as dishwasher-safe drawer inserts for cutlery, as well as upper boxes with translucent bottoms, so that under-cabinet lighting illuminates not only the counter below but also the shelving above. No wonder showroom President Fred Crockett jokes that the new space, with its efficient solutions for cooking and storage, is a dream for the organizationally obsessed. Yet visitors can see so much more than cabinets. There’s a glass backsplash backlighted with LEDs, so the wall color can shift like the lighting towers outside LAX, and a Kuppersbusch induction stove top whose concave surface can cradle a wok, not to mention boil water in seconds. 70 E. Montecito Ave.; (626) 355-7500; www.alnopasadena.com.

-- Craig Nakano