Restaurant Kitchen Equipment Recommendations Include Commercial Garbage Disposal Alternative
Commercial kitchens need to be in their best condition in order for chefs and sous-chefs to do their best work. Kitchens need to be fully stocked, incredibly organized, and practically spotless.
If you're getting ready to open your commercial kitchen for the first time, make sure you have the following restaurant kitchen equipment to help things go according to plan.
Knives
A chef doesn't walk into a kitchen without their knives. Many chefs even take their knives with them at the end of the night and bring them back the next day. From cleaning a filet to chopping some garlic and putting the final touches on a dish, chefs use them for everything.
This mostly applies to head chefs and the chefs right below them. Your kitchen will need plenty of knives to make sure the sous chefs have what they need in order to make sure every dish is executed perfectly. The more knives you have at each station, the better.
Commercial Oven and Stovetop
Regardless of how many prep stations you have and different dishes you plan to make at a time, you need a commercial oven and grill. Realistically, you may need a few.
This high-quality kitchen equipment is made for fast-paced cooking. They can handle the high volume of orders coming through your kitchen, and they're durable enough to last you a few years.
Pans, Pots, and Lids
Just as you can't cook anything without an oven or stovetop, you can't cook without the needed things to place inside and on top of these pieces of equipment. This includes pans, pots, and their accompanying lids.
Make sure you have plenty. Get multiple of the pans you plan to use the most and a few backups of the things you only plan to use less frequently. It is better to be overprepared than underprepared for the traffic coming through your restaurant.
Tongs, Ladles, Spatulas, and More
How do you make sure everything is cooking properly? By turning with a tong, stirring with a ladle, flipping with a spatula, and more.
Common restaurant cooking utensils include:
- whisks
- graters
- peelers
- skimmers
- strainers
- meat tenderizers
- various kinds of presses
Mixing Bowls
The next thing you need to make sure there's enough of is mixing bowls. Honestly, you can never have too many mixing bowls. These come in handy when tossing a salad, creating an in-house seasoning, and remaking a sauce that didn't come out right the first time.
Bowls are part of the pre-open prep and crucial to the entire cooking process ahead. They help chefs stay organized and mix everything just right.
Plates
Once a meal is ready, it has to be plated. Proper plating is essential at a restaurant because looks matter just as much as taste. There's a certain way to set up the sauce and the protein, the sides, and even the garnishes. Everything on a plate serves a visual purpose is to be placed in a way that makes the most sense to a person's palate.
Tools and Storage Space
Whether your head chef goes shopping for fresh ingredients every morning or you get an order of food in each week, you need a place to put everything. Not to mention a few carts in the corner of the kitchen that will help you receive everything off the trucks they come in on.
From there, it's straight to the fridge or the pantry space. These ingredients need to be organized and inventory checks should be taken at every open and close. Such attention to detail ensures you're serving fresh food every day.
Labels and Pens
It's one thing to receive food off a truck and another to put it away at the end of the night. Depending on the cuisine you're making and how high-end you want your restaurant to be, you're going to have to store things.
This goes for leftover sauce, cut protein, overnight marinades and any dough that has to rise. From the fresh bread that gets dropped at each table to the end of meal desserts, it pays to know when something was stored.
Labels and pens help you understand whether the kitchen has something on hand or if you need to make it from scratch.
Dishwashing Equipment
A dirty kitchen is a sign of a good day's work. But, it needs to be cleaned up in order to ensure a good work environment the following day and to maintain health regulations.
The storage part of cleaning is mentioned above, but don't forget about all the dishes. You need a large dishwashing space and a few dish hands to help you get through the stacks of dirty restaurant kitchen equipment and the tableware from the restaurant floor.
Due to the high volume of washing the kitchen is going to do every night, watch out for any draining issues that may occur. The last thing you want to do is have to call in a plumber right before opening the next day.
Waste Solutions
While you're storing food and washing dishes, you're going to come across a significant amount of waste. A single trash can won't be able to handle it all. Think about the most effective waste solutions for every part of the kitchen.
It may be a good idea to have a small trash can by the sous chefs or dessert preparation area, in addition to the large waste solutions you'll need for the kitchen as a whole. Also, consider whether you'd like to compost or recycle since you're working with lots of fresh food and packaging.
The Drain Strainer
No matter how many fancy tools and great chefs you have in your kitchen on opening day, you need to maintain a clean kitchen if you want to keep them around. The Drain Strainer can help you do just that.
The Drain Strainer will prevent your floor drains, wall drains and grease traps from getting clogged with food debris. The Drain Strainer is also an effective and affordable commercial garbage disposal alternative that helps your dish room handle all kinds of grease, crumbs, and leftover food.
Contact us to find out more about how The Drain Strainer can protect your commercial kitchen floor drains from getting clogged with food debris from your stainless steel sinks.