Commercial Kitchen Equipment & Essentials Every Hospitality Business Needs

Starting a new business or renovating an existing commercial kitchen can be an exciting yet daunting task. Managing a kitchen fit-out is no small feat. As every restaurant, bar or cafe owner knows, the kitchen is the driving force that determines the success of your business. The kitchen fit-out presents an opportunity to reassess your business needs and the kitchen equipment, appliances and other essentials you purchase.

With the cost of the average kitchen fit-out going well into six digits, it's crucial to balance items you need versus those you want, to avoid going over budget. Planning is the key to minimising stress and keeping budget constraints. Consider the necessity of every piece of equipment, appliance and furnishings you place into your kitchen workspace.

In the initial planning stage, you would have carefully considered the location of primary cooking equipment, prep and food storage areas, washbasins, dish and glasswashers. As your vision comes closer to reality, deciding on what appliances, based on brand, size and capacity are paramount. At times, with the pressure of managing a kitchen fit-out, it is easy to overlook some of those all-important kitchen essentials.

To prevent that happening to you, we've put together an exhaustive list of kitchen appliances, equipment and other essentials to help make your job a little easier. And, because it's such a mind-numbingly long article, we have broken it down into eight, easily digestible sections, they are:

Cooking Equipment
Refrigeration
Benchtop Equipment
Freestanding Commercial Dishwashers
Kitchen Benches & Storage
Cookware, Kitchenware & Crockery
Commercial Exhaust Canopies, Hoods and Fans
Regulatory Compliance

The cooking equipment you use can determine the efficiency and flow of your entire kitchen. As you can well imagine the heart of any great kitchen is its chef, and behind every great chef, is the cooking equipment he or she depends.

There are a variety of freezer solutions designed to meet the needs of your kitchen while balancing function and space-savings. There are four freezer types;

Great chefs are defined by the tools they use. When it comes to catering equipment, nothing could be truer. Commercial kitchen equipment by design will withstand the daily rigours of regular and continual use and form the cornerstone of productivity and performance in the kitchen.

The cooking needs of commercial kitchens vary greatly depending on their area of expertise. Our aim in creating our kitchen essentials guide was to cover the pieces of equipment most commonly used in commercial kitchens.