For the past 8 years I have been cooking food, designing menus, talking to customers about their special requirements, honing my skills, travelling to different places, coping with different nationalities and therefore attitudes, blogging, controlling food costs, getting scolded by the boss and barking at my team; then I got this assignment.

The Assignment

A piece of 600 sq ft land with a terrace. The assignment was to turn this piece of land into an operational kitchen. The restaurant would have 80 covers and serve Fine dining Mediterranean cuisine.

I felt that the size of the kitchen was very important. I am not an architect but from a layman's point of view a rule of thumb is one third of your area should be the kitchen. In India, we see things differently and the saying goes that "the tighter the kitchen, the more efficient the restaurant" Then you end up with a kitchen the size of a piggy bank. We ended up with a compromise and it was an agreeable deal.

The Kitchen
Before I could even decide one thing about the kitchen, I had to decide on the menu. The menu dictates the equipment you need which impacts on the space you have available.
I chose French, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Lebanese and Moroccan cuisine out of the Mediterranean cuisines.
This got me thinking about the different equipment I would need for each cuisine:
For Italian -Pizza oven
For Spanish -Paella dishes.
For Lebanese- Shawarma machine, Tagine -pot

It helps if you can firm up on these things and then the extraction and fresh air hoods can be worked around.

My investors insisted on having pizza on the menu, and I insisted on getting the best wooden fire pizza oven from Italy. Only then is it worth keeping pizza on the menu.

That is what has happened so far; I will keep you posted.

One more request to all my beloved readers, please suggest to me the name of the restaurant as I have not decided yet. It should be unique and relate to the Mediterranean.