Where's The Kitchen

 All restaurants should have a fiully stocked kitchen, right? There should be a large range with plenty of space to cook three or four dishes, a big fridge to hold supplies and a huge table to create many mise enplaces. Yet what happens when an eatery has no kitchen? Can it still survive? Surprisingly yes!

Regular contributor and chef herself, Piya Krishna wrote about this phenomenon in yesterday's New York Times Wednesday Food section. She visited a handful of restaurants across the US to see exactly how chefs fare with little to no prep and cooking space. They do very well, relying on innovation to create mouth watering and memorable dishes for customers. Take Friends and Family in Oakland ,California where the only cooker is a panini press. Chef Gaby Maeda uses it to do all sorts of things, from griddling onions to charring cabbage. Without a fryer she bastes chicken wings in brown butter to give them that "unctiousness" only a deep fryer can give.Mexican food can be made without a grill. Chef and owner of Denver's Alma  Finda Fina Johhnny Curiel has to forgo this major component of south of the border cooking.Instead he whips up braises and crudos in a cooking space that consists mainly of three induction burners and a convection oven.There is a griddle in the back of the restaurant where he and his staff turn ground, corn into nixtamalized  tortillas..

Can a chef cook into a five foot kitchen? Yes! At Charleston, South Carolina's Kultura ,chef and owner Nikko Cagalaman makes Filipino recipes in a kitchen with just one(!) power plug. Guests sit at a bar just "one hand"away from cooking stations. He doesn;t pan fry scallops. Now they seared on top like creme brule and cooked in a sauce. New  York City has always been the city with zero space for almost everything. Chef Sunny Lee of  Sunn's knows this and this is why her Manhattan eatery is so miniscule She borrowed a wok from next door restaurant Tolo to char broccoli for nanui. Her kitchen accessories, microplanes ,scissors and strainers all hand like pictures on a wall. Since she can't char veggies she tosses shallot powder into a tangy dressing to mimic the taste of char.Her salads are all made from pickled veggies because she doesn't have a fridge for fresh ones.Cellar Door Provisions in Chicago runs under the same premise.Ethan Pikas shrank the kitchen by a third during the pandemic and now he and his chef de cuisine Alex Cochran steam buns ,simmer stock and roast a pig's head all in one oven. Most of his foods are brined which saves from cooking them. He creates a fig leaf vinegar which can dress up a beurre blanc for sole..Brined white asparagus punches up beef tartare.

Can a restaurant survive without a kitchen?Priya KrYes.It does take a talented chef and innovation to do so. It does work=/