Ask George: What’s your opinion of open restaurant kitchens? George G., St. Louis
Diners have forever wanted to know what goes on behind the kitchen doors. Opening up those doors—by knocking down a kitchen wall—answered many questions, but also caused a new set of problems.
Here are some advantages and disadvantages:
Advantages
- A restaurant’s kitchen is the source of many horror stories—opening up the kitchen allays many of the fears associated with those stories by basically saying, “We’ve got nothing to hide.” The advent of fast-casual restaurants (places that make your meal right in front of you) were a positive addition to the restaurant scene.
- Being able to observe chefs in every stage of a meal’s production is both educational and entertaining.
- With the kitchen now a stage, chefs and assistants are forced to work cleaner and quieter—there is less tossing of pots and the language that often accompanies it.
- With more eyes in the kitchen, chefs arguably tend to fuss over dishes more than they would otherwise.
- Aromas—a powerful sense when discussing food—become front and center.
- Open kitchens have forced kitchen staffers to wear plastic gloves, which did not always happen in a closed-off environment.
Disadvantages
- It’s difficult to keep a kitchen quiet: The clanging, the banging, the slamming, the cursing makes having an open kitchen a constant challenge.
- A lot of an open kitchen’s (usually fluorescent) light ends up in the dining room, which doesn’t do much for the ambience.
- A restaurant with an open kitchen opens itself up to guests critiquing the kitchen as well as the food—and social media has shown the incredible divergence in guest’s opinions. They may not admit it, but most restaurant owners think giving the customer more fodder criticize is problematic.
Some customers prefer open kitchens; some do not. I say yes, with reservations. For example, I love how Katie Lee of Katie’s Pizza & Pasta turns down the harsh lights in her wall-length open kitchen at night, so customers feel like they’re looking into a home kitchen rather than a commercial one.
The same goes for chefs. Chef/owner Brian Hardesty of Element based his floor plan on an open kitchen that runs the length of the main dining room. Dining out nowadays is experiential; it’s also part theater. Those components are working at Element.
John O’Brien, chef/owner at Three Flags Tavern, sees it differently. “The restaurant is the stage; the kitchen is backstage,” he says. “For me, seeing what’s going on backstage ruins the performance. When I’m dining, I don’t need to see proteins being broken down or cooks cutting their fingers. And I don’t really want my customers to crane their necks looking back into the kitchen thinking, ‘Where is my food? Is that my food? Why is that guy touching my food?’ It’s distracting. It’s unnecessary.”
