Kitchen

A kitchen is a dedicated space, either a whole room or a designated area, where cooking and food preparation happen, whether in a home or a business. Its core jobs are storing food, getting it ready, cooking it, and handling cleanup like washing dishes. The global market for designing and building kitchens is enormous.

In a typical modern middle-class home, a kitchen includes a stove, a sink with both hot and cold running water, a refrigerator, and countertops and cabinets that follow a modular layout. Many households also add a microwave, dishwasher, and other electric appliances. Beyond cooking, this space can be used for dining, casual meals, entertaining, or even laundry.

Commercial kitchens, found in restaurants, hotels, hospitals, schools, military barracks, and similar places, are usually larger and use heavier-duty gear than home kitchens. A big restaurant, for instance, might have a walk-in refrigerator and a large commercial dishwasher. Sometimes, commercial-grade sinks are used in homes because they are durable and easy to work with. In developed countries, these commercial kitchens must follow public health laws and are regularly inspected; they can be shut down if they don't meet hygiene standards.

Historically, early medieval longhouses in Europe had an open fire at the building's highest point, with the kitchen area placed between the entrance and the fire. Wealthy homes often had multiple kitchens, each for different types of food. Kitchens were sometimes separate from the main hall to avoid smoke and fire risk, and few medieval examples survive because they were built to be temporary. In colonial New England, kitchens were often separate rooms behind the parlor or dining room. An inventory from 1648 in Windsor, Connecticut, lists items like silver spoons, pewter, and iron tools in a kitchen. Later inventions like the Rumford roaster and kitchen range made better use of space and fuel.

The modern fitted kitchen began with the Frankfurt Kitchen, designed in 1926 by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky for social housing. It was a compact 1.9 by 3.4 meters, built for efficiency and lower costs, based on time-motion studies and tenant interviews. About 10,000 apartments in Frankfurt got this design in the 1930s. Earlier, Christine Frederick published articles starting in 1913 that applied Taylorist efficiency principles to kitchen design, using time-motion studies. Her ideas influenced architects in Germany and Austria in the 1920s, including Bruno Taut and Erna Meyer, who created the first fitted kitchen for the Haus am Horn in 1923.

Fast food and convenience food trends have changed how restaurant kitchens work. Some only finish or reheat pre-made meals, while others might grill a burger or steak. By the early 21st century, convenience stores were gaining market share by doing more on-site food prep and offering better service than some fast food outlets. In India, poor families often still use clay stoves and older fuels, but urban middle and upper classes typically have gas stoves with cylinders or piped gas. Electric cooktops are rare due to high electricity use, though microwaves are becoming popular in homes and businesses. Indian kitchens also use biogas and solar energy, and the world's largest solar kitchen is in India, with government support for domestic biogas plants.