Open plan gave private dining its best format, the chef’s table at home, and its worst problem: nowhere to wash up. A brigade of three plating nine courses six metres from a seated table produces noise, steam and the sound of a bus tub being loaded, and no amount of good manners hides it.
What is changing
Architects working for people who entertain are putting the wall back: a dining room that closes, a service door, a pantry with a second sink and a plating bench. In new London and New York projects the back kitchen has returned, not as nostalgia but because it is the only way to hire a brigade without the brigade becoming the entertainment.
If you cannot rebuild
Designate a room. A study, a utility room, a garage with a folding table and a work light: anywhere the washing and the plating can happen out of sight. The mobile kitchen guide lists what a travelling brigade needs from it, and it is less than most people assume.
