Kitchen - Other Kitchen Types

Other Kitchen Types

Restaurant and canteen kitchens found in hotels, hospitals, educational and work place facilities, army barracks, and similar establishments are generally (in developed countries) subject to public health laws. They are inspected periodically by public-health officials, and forced to close if they do not meet hygienic requirements mandated by law.

Canteen kitchens (and castle kitchens) were often the places where new technology was used first. For instance, Benjamin Thompson's "energy saving stove", an early-19th century fully closed iron stove using one fire to heat several pots, was designed for large kitchens; another thirty years passed before they were adapted for domestic use.

Today's western restaurant kitchens typically have tiled walls and floors and use stainless steel for other surfaces (workbench, but also door and drawer fronts) because these materials are durable and easy to clean. Professional kitchens are often equipped with gas stoves, as these allow cooks to regulate the heat more quickly and more finely than electrical stoves. Some special appliances are typical for professional kitchens, such as large installed deep fryers, steamers, or a bain-marie. (As of 2004, steamers — not to be confused with a pressure cooker — are beginning to find their way into domestic households, sometimes as a combined appliance of oven and steamer.)

The fast food and convenience food trends have also changed the way restaurant kitchens operate. There's a trend for restaurants to only "finish" delivered convenience food or even just re-heat completely prepared meals, maybe at the utmost grilling, a hamburger, or a steak.

The kitchens in railway dining cars present special challenges: space is constrained, and, nevertheless, the personnel must be able to serve a great number of meals quickly. Especially in the early history of railways this required flawless organization of processes; in modern times, the microwave oven and prepared meals have made this task much easier. Galleys are kitchens aboard ships or aircraft (although the term galley is also often used to refer to a railroad dining car's kitchen). On yachts, galleys are often cramped, with one or two burners fueled by an LP gas bottle, but kitchens on cruise ships or large warships are comparable in every respect with restaurants or canteen kitchens. On passenger airliners, the kitchen is reduced to a mere pantry, the only function reminiscent of a kitchen is the heating of in-flight meals delivered by a catering company. An extreme form of the kitchen occurs in space, e.g., aboard a Space Shuttle (where it is also called the "galley") or the International Space Station. The astronauts' food is generally completely prepared, dehydrated, and sealed in plastic pouches, and the kitchen is reduced to a rehydration and heating module.

Outdoor areas in which food is prepared are generally not considered to be kitchens, even though an outdoor area set up for regular food preparation, for instance when camping, might be called an "outdoor kitchen". Military camps and similar temporary settlements of nomads may have dedicated kitchen tents.

In schools where home economics (HE) or food technology (previously known as "domestic science") are taught, there will be a series of kitchens with multiple equipment (similar in some respects to laboratories) solely for the purpose of teaching. These will consist of six to twelve workstations, each with their own oven, sink, and kitchen utensils.