Xo.C: local shopping

Graham & Brooks

Monday, November 30, 2020
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The Kitchen Witch: conjure up old world entertaining

Oooooh guys this is a good one! In keeping with my local store bio's, I'm really happy to be giving you a little lookski into one of my favourite shops in town: The Kitchen Witch!

This store has my heart in a unique way because I've had the opportunity to hang out there over this past year and work alongside the owner Donna.

After coming to my Trunk Show business launch, Donna asked me to work a few hours at her lovely, local store over the Christmas season and being someone who likes to juggle a million things, of course I said yes; and here's why...

I went into the Kitchen Witch for the first time after moving to Dundas in 2013 from Oakville. Moving from Oakville is not a detail to leave unnoticed in this story. Oakville is a wealthy community (for the most part), the downtown is quaint in an upscale boutique-y kind of way. I would often grab a coffee and parooze the shops looking for unusual and marvelous things; the types of 'things' you can't buy in a mall. But shopping on Lakeshore in Oakville definitely carries a hefty price-tag. So, in true Char fashion, when I moved to Dundas I made it my modus operandi to infiltrate the local shopping scene and find amazing things.

Queue The Kitchen Witch.

When you walk into The Kitchen Witch, what you actually enter is:

Donna's World of Miraculous and Amazing Discoveries

First impression: I have arrived. Yes to aaaaaaall of this.

Floor to ceiling trinkets & treasures

Looove the dimensions and use of leather on this bucket bag

A quick sensory overload may have occurred as I took in the sweet crooning of vintage bluesy-jazz by way of Billie Holiday; the smell of imported soaps in the air... *pause for dreamy, far off glare* but I quickly snapped back into reality as I noticed how reasonably priced everything seemed to be.

New product line this year, made in Canada and smells ah-mazing

Compared to the upscale and unrelatable pricing structure I was used to encountering in Oakville, The Kitchen Witch seemed like a retail oasis.

Vintage Vinyl floor cloths

Donna, an Intensive Care Nurse by trade, having a love for entertaining and old-world lux, had the moxy to open a shop entirely dedicated to her passion of entertaining and creative living. But that doesn't even begin to cover the range of curious, beautiful, elegant, or hilarious things you'll find in her shop.

I feel like there are so many applications for this card in my life... and it comes with an ass button. Perfect.

Donna in her element at Halloween

Having the word "Kitchen" in title of the store, does mean you'll be able to find some of the loveliest linens around. Amazing printed Italian tablecloths, aprons, and tea towels. TEA TOWELS(!) oh, the lovely array of tea towels from Italy, France, and even some made in a 900 year-old mill in Russia (BTW: everything, everything, seems to have a story in Donna's shop: hand-dipped candles, handbags and backpacks made from reclaimed military tents, handmade jewelry, fair-trade organic cotton scarves, vintage skis made into Christmas decor...the list goes on forever...).

Her broad and varied interests shine through in her collection of interesting stationary oddities, grand light fixtures, the vast array of fine French soaps, carefully selected throw pillows, and her satisfying wall of decorative hardware.

Bottle openers, door-knockers, hooks, knobs, fun times

But what I reaaally love, is that even though there are literally items from the floor to the ceiling, Donna has the most incredible ability of creatively displaying the things in her shop so it feels like you are participating in an event. There is a whole world captured in her small retail footprint.

Everything is so well considered that even her gift wrapping feels loved.

I'm not prone to buying inspirational quotes for wall art, but I like this a lot

You'll find old & new, quirky & beautiful, nurturing & delicious (try the wild hibiscus in syrup...). The Kitchen Witch honestly has it all. I guarantee you'll even find something for your most obnoxious, hard-to-buy for gift recipient.