What a Commercial Kitchen Design Brief Should Include
What a Commercial Kitchen Design Brief Should Include
A good brief is essential to saving time and money and avoiding confusion prior to commencing any Commercial Kitchen Design work.
Your Menu and Cooking Methods
Your Menu and Cooking Methods – List all of the dishes you serve in your restaurant and then for each dish work out the cooking methods and equipment required to prepare it. So for example a restaurant that serves a lot of fried food will require deep fat fryers, steamed fish dishes will require steamers and a restaurant that serves a lot of roasted meats will require a large combi-oven.
Expected Covers and Service Patterns
Peak covers per service (dinner and lunch) as well as details on batch prep, a la carte or a combination of both. This information will enable the designer to correctly size the equipment as well as the amount of continuous worktop run required.
Utilities and Services Already on Site
Please outline the gas supply and any relevant information about it (e.g. pressure), electrical supply (e.g. is it three phase?) and drainage (e.g. where does it come out of the wall?) and indicate on a plan of the space where extraction duct work can run (e.g. up through roof spaces, along external walls).
Compliance and Certification Requirements
The design brief should also explain the food business registration and hygiene requirements of the local authority. This includes the surface finishes, hand washing facilities and temperature control of food. If the premises is to handle food containing allergens then the premises must be designed to maintain separation of these products at all times. If large quantities of cooked food are to be produced then DEFRA-compliant grease management facilities may be required.
Staff Numbers and Workflow Direction
How many people will be working in your kitchen at peak times and in what rough areas of the kitchen will they be? Where will deliveries arrive and follow a path to the pass. Sketch out the sequence of goods-in to finished dishes through the following stages: unloading, storage, preparation, cooking, plating. This is a much easier brief for a designer to turn into a working kitchen if they can see the flow of human activity as well as the equipment needed to facilitate it.
The more information that is provided in the design brief the less room for error and the less time that will be wasted going back and forth through the design process making amendments and alterations to the Commercial Kitchen Design.
