Layout of kitchen

After deciding major equipment for the kitchen, sketching of kitchen layout was required. Did wall to wall measurement, keeping 6-8 in on the border side (for fencing the kitchen from all sides. And that measurement named as yield space (net usable space).

Later I made equipment list and divided the same in three major categories –
Big equipment – that equipment which will take time (4-6 weeks) to fabricate or procured and are of heavy duty natured.

Easy purchase equipment – that equipment which can be procured or fabricate in a week or so.

Kitchen utensils – that equipment which can be done on cash purchase and are for daily purpose use.

The equipment list is a very easy tool to sketch the “visualized” kitchen on paper. All I had to do was to allocates and align them in that yielded space to get maximum productivity.

Having said that, there were few things to be kept in mind –
• the amount of space required for a cook ‘s movement
• Work flow chart of the kitchen - Receiving, Storage, Cleaning, and Processing, Cooking and, Serving the cooked product.
• Electrical, gas , water and drain points – these are the points specific to equipments
• Vicinity of equipment – total amount of space required by equipment for a normal operation.

Ordering – I spend some good time to find the kitchen equipment supplier.
I got a great help from internet, free ads in newspaper, phone services and word of mouth.

With the supplier, we got the design for every equipment (fabrication of equipment) and finalized every equipment which fell under THE BIG EQUIPMENT category (as mentioned above).
One of the major learning ,doing the layout of the kitchen ,was AUTOCAD and second learning was any of these layout when made cannot be wrong , it can only be judged on the parameter of smooth operation or congested operation . So if it lands up in congested operation some rectification will be required to do (not an easy task) and as for now I cannot claim anything .All I know that I am doing in right way

The most important work which was going side by side with the layout of kitchen was the menu.
Keep reading the blogs.

Culinary Regards,
Ajay Thakur