Many people believe that there is little in
the planning of commercial kitchen design. This is because it’s not
front-of-house; no customer is going to see the kitchen, so why bother
undertaking expensive design. However, this understanding is completely off
kilter. With commercial kitchens, the design has significant impact on the
quality of the food, the quality of service, and ultimately, on the reputation
of the restaurant. If you want to run a successful restaurant, then you must
have a well-functioning kitchen. This does not simply mean having equipment
that works, but having a fantastic space to work in, for your chefs and your
waiting staff. Here, we’re going to take a closer look at kitchen design.
Planning the System
For commercial kitchens to be successful,
they have to have a system, and this system needs to be built into the design.
What this means is creating a logical order in food preparation areas and
storage. For example, a bistro that sells normal pub food will be selling both
fresh and cooked foods. It is important that these areas are kept separate in
order to avoid cross-contamination. However, it is also important that both
areas can reach the refrigerator, or other shared appliances. In this case, you
may choose to have refrigeration in the middle, and then a cold preparation
area on one side, and a warm preparation area on the other side. Within the
cold preparation area, you may be preparing salad and fish. It is not a good
idea to prepare these foods on the same surface because tastes can transfer –
your customers aren’t going to like it if their goats’ cheese salad tastes of
salmon (although, to be fair, those two flavours go very well together). So,
you need to think about the way that each section can be segmented further.
Each section – e.g. cold fish preparation –
will need to have their own cutlery and other paraphernalia associated with
that particular culinary delight. You need to plan these into the system too.
You do not want your staff walking from one end of the kitchen to another to
prepare a single dish. They should be able to create each dish within the
appropriate station. By doing this you can avoid some common problems that
occur in commercial kitchens:
1.
Staff wasting energy rushing
between stations. This makes them tired, which makes them less productive,
which in turn leads them to make mistakes.
2.
Staff rushing around the
kitchen are a hazard. If you have a poorly organised kitchen, you are more
likely to have accidents, which can lead to litigation, and is therefore best
avoided.
3.
Cross contamination is easier
if the various stations overlap.
You can help to organise stations better by
using separate refrigeration, ovens, microwaves, and whatever other appliances
you use. Or, alternatively, have the stations so that each key piece of
equipment lays between them.
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