Building a kitchen where there is none

Most private dinners above twelve guests are cooked in a kitchen that did not exist that morning: a garage, a tent, a utility room or a run of folding tables under a car port. The brigade brings induction plates, a water bath, hot cabinets, cool boxes, bus tubs, knives, pans and light, and the host provides the four things that cannot travel: power, water, space and a route to the table.

Power is the first question

Induction is the standard because gas is a fire and insurance problem indoors, and each plate draws about 3.5 kilowatts. Two plates and a hot cabinet will trip a domestic ring circuit that also runs the fridge and the lights. Anything above a dinner for sixteen needs either a dedicated 32 ampere supply or a generator, and generators need to sit far enough away that nobody hears them. Ask your electrician or the venue for the board rating before the menu is agreed, not after.

Cold, water, waste

Cold chain is the part that carries real risk. Everything perishable stays between 0 and 5 degrees from the supplier to twenty minutes before service, which in a rented villa in August means hired cool boxes or a mobile cold room, in shade, with a thermometer. Water: five litres a guest covers cooking and washing. Waste: one large bin per twenty guests, removed by someone whose job it is, because a dinner that ends with forty bin bags in a garden is not finished.

The route to the table

Measure the distance and the steps between the pass and the table. Twenty metres and a staircase changes a plated menu into a family style one, and that is a decision to take in the site visit rather than at half past eight. The location kitchen check asks these questions for your venue type and tells you what to hire.