Andrea AbbondanzaWhen designing a restaurant kitchen in Australia, there are some essential tips and factors to consider. From space and layout to equipment selection and noise control, restaurant kitchen design is a complex yet exciting endeavor.
A well-planned kitchen layout can greatly impact the quality of food preparation, meals cooked, and the speed of service, ultimately creating an exceptional customer experience. You’ll set up your restaurant kitchen for success by designing with these goals.
Whether starting from scratch or looking for ways to spruce up an existing space, these restaurant kitchen design tips will provide the ultimate insights for creating a well-planned restaurant kitchen. Read on!
Detailed Guide To Restaurant Kitchen Design Tips
Dig deeper into our detailed guide to restaurant kitchen design tips here!
Understating Your Kitchen Space
Before designing your restaurant kitchen, you must understand the space you must work with. Measure the room dimensions and consider both current and future needs.
In addition, consider the location of surrounding walls and doors, including fire exits and windows. You should factor these elements into your design plans to maximize productivity while still meeting safety standards.
Know Your Local Health Codes
When designing your restaurant’s commercial kitchen, it’s essential to understand and comply with local health codes, including health and fire laws and staff safety practices. Research the regulations that impact your operation and ensure you adhere to them.
This includes understanding the necessary measures for food safety, cleaning surfaces and equipment, proper dishwashing techniques, and preventing food contamination. By following health codes, you will help keep both your staff and customers safe.
Ask Yourself Which Configuration
Layout configuration is crucial when designing a commercial kitchen, hence the need for the best layout suited for the space. Common options include linear, galley-style, U-shaped, single-line, ergonomic, or island-style.
Each of these commercial kitchen layouts has its own pros and cons and should be considered based on how much space is available, how many staff members need to be accommodated, and the overall workflow of the kitchen.
Kitchen Floor Plan
In designing a commercial kitchen floor plan, no two restaurants are alike. This is due to the variety of operating models of each restaurant.
In addition, the layout of the space will also impact how the kitchen floor plan is structured. In fact, an optimal commercial kitchen floor plan needs to consider both the layout and the equipment necessary for easier movement during the job.
To create a workable layout, you must know what components must be included before planning.
Key Elements of a Restaurant Kitchen Layout
After understanding the guide for restaurant kitchen design tips, you should know which elements will be needed for a commercial kitchen. When constructing a commercial kitchen, it is imperative to ensure that the design meets the basic requirements and allows for efficient transitions between spaces.
Here are seven key elements that you must incorporate into your restaurant’s commercial kitchen layout:
Delivery
Restaurants must have an allocated area for food to be delivered and received, preferably with ample parking.
Note that this area should be close enough to the storage area to lower spoilage during offloading yet not too close to the main areas of operation in the kitchen.
Storage
Your restaurant kitchen must have sufficient storage room to store all the necessary items, such as cooking equipment, dinnerware, and ingredients.
Also, ensure that there are pantries for dry goods, fridges and freezers for perishables, and cabinets for utensils, glassware, plates, and linens. This way, your restaurant kitchen belongings will be neatly in place.
Food Prep
It is important to have a food prep station, which number may vary depending on your restaurant’s menu. The food prep area should include counter space, cutting tools, and storage containers close to a refrigerator.
Moreover, it is important to consider customers with allergies. Thus, staff must store food in separate places from cooking stations and label any ingredients that could cause adverse reactions.
To keep cross-contamination in check, allergen-free meals should also be prepared using different areas and equipment.
Cooking
Your restaurant cooking station is the heart of your kitchen and should be equipped with the necessary cooking equipment for preparing the food your restaurant serves. This will typically include an oven, fryer, and other specialized equipment for certain dishes.
Also, to ensure your restaurant must employ seamless communication between FOH (front-of-house) and BOH (back-of-house) teams using a kitchen display system (KDS). This is a tablet or screen that directly displays orders from your restaurant POS system. This way, it will reduce ticket time and cut out errors.
Service
After cooking your dishes, they must be properly presented. Therefore, it is a must to have a designated area where finished dishes are placed before being taken away by the servers to the guests. Ideally, this area should be near the dining room, reducing the need for servers to travel far from the kitchen.
Plus, having heat lamps in this service area is also a great idea since they will keep food warm until the servers pick them up. By having this area, you’ll help ensure that customers receive their meals in a timely and efficient manner.
Dish Return
Every dish taken from your commercial kitchen will eventually have to be returned. That’s why it is important to create a designated area for FOH staff to place their dirty plates, utensils, and other items.
Not only should there be enough space for staff to stack the dishes awaiting washing conveniently, but there should also be proper waste disposal for any uneaten items.
Cleaning
A commercial kitchen needs a lot of cleaning — from plates to the equipment itself. Therefore, you must set up a designated area with three-compartment sinks, industrial dishwashers, and drying racks to keep everything in top condition.
A proper cleaning area is also a restaurant’s way to ensure that every piece of equipment used in the kitchen is squeaky clean. This way, the food served to the customers is also guaranteed hygienic.
Types of Commercial Kitchen Layouts
Choosing the most efficient restaurant kitchen layout for your place is essential. Check out the description of each common commercial restaurant kitchen design tips layout below:
Assembly line layout
An assembly line layout restaurant kitchen is a type of kitchen setup that uses a linear layout. Each station in the kitchen performs one specific task in the food preparation process, such as chopping vegetables or grilling meat.
The assembly line layout is often used for restaurants that produce large volumes of food in a short amount of time. It offers maximum efficiency since staff can move between stations quickly, and all necessary ingredients and tools are easily accessible.
Island layout
An island-style restaurant kitchen is a type of kitchen design that uses separate islands for different functions, such as food preparation, cooking, and cleaning.
It differs from traditional linear kitchens in that it offers greater mobility and flexibility for chefs, allowing them to move freely between workstations.
The layout also helps to increase efficiency since staff can easily access all the necessary equipment without having to walk long distances.
Zone-style layout
A zone-style restaurant kitchen is a type of commercial kitchen setup that divides the workspace into multiple workstations or ‘zones’.
These zones are designed to enhance the efficiency of the team and better manage food production and preparation. The kitchen is divided into areas such as the receiving and storage space, meat preparation, fish preparation, vegetable preparation, hot plating, cold plating, and dishwashing.
Typically, each station includes its own deep fryer, ovens, and other necessary equipment. This organizational system ensures that every step in food preparation happens orderly and that nothing gets overlooked or mixed up.
Galley layout
A galley-style restaurant kitchen is an efficient and organized workspace that allows for the quick preparation of food. This type of kitchen layout consists of two parallel counters (galley rails) on opposite sides with a central aisle in between.
This design enables staff to move quickly from one kitchen side to the other while providing easy access to appliances, equipment, ingredients, and storage shelves.
The galley-style setup also offers flexibility in changing the size of individual workstations depending on the need and the types of dishes being prepared. It helps reduce inter-staff traffic by ensuring everyone has their own space and only uses shared spaces when necessary.
Open kitchen layout
An open kitchen layout restaurant kitchen is a type of commercial kitchen setup where the workspace is left entirely open. This design eliminates all the divides and walls that create ‘zones’ in a traditional restaurant kitchen, creating a more unified space with optimal communication between staff.
This layout proves that kitchens run best when staff collaborates instead of working in isolated stations.
Also, this kitchen layout offers customers a more immersive experience as they can interact with and watch chefs prepare food. The lack of dividing walls and floors also makes cleaning, maintaining, and adjusting the equipment easier.
Ergonomic layout
An ergonomic restaurant kitchen layout is designed to maximize comfort, efficiency, and safety for staff. This includes creating designated areas for different tasks, such as dishwashing, cooking, and food preparation.
Workstations are positioned in a way that reduces stress on the eyes and body by providing proper spacing between objects and good lighting. Ample room is allocated for staff to move around comfortably as they work, which also helps prevent accidents.
The layout encourages team members to work together since they can easily collaborate in shared spaces while adhering to social distancing guidelines. All these features combine to create an efficient workspace that leads to better productivity and quality of service.
How to choose the best commercial kitchen layout for your restaurant
Choosing the best commercial kitchen layout for your restaurant can be a hard process, but there are a few essential restaurant kitchen design tips to consider that will help you make the right decision:
- Think about how much space is available and how many staff members need to use it — this will determine how big or small of a layout is needed.
- Decide what cuisine your restaurant serves and plan accordingly — including equipment selection and placement.
- Consider ergonomics and safety features when designing the layout — these are essential for creating a safe and comfortable workspace for staff.
By taking all these restaurant kitchen design tips seriously, you can create the perfect kitchen layout for your business.
Most Frequently Asked Questions
What are the four major systems in a commercial kitchen?
The assembly line, island, zone, and open-style kitchen are four commonly employed systems in the commercial kitchen.
Conclusion
Running a restaurant requires many different things, from SEO for Restaurants to restaurant designs. Designing a restaurant kitchen is no small feat — there are many factors to consider to create an efficient kitchen design space that is both functional and inviting. By following the restaurant kitchen design tips in this guide, you will be well on your way to designing a successful restaurant kitchen that meets the needs of both your business and your customers. Thanks for reading these restaurant kitchen design tips!
