The right restaurant equipment for your new Italian eatery
Opening a new restaurant is a difficult task. You have to hire staff, decorate the interior, design a menu, decide on pricing and worry about advertising. With all of the complicated things going on in your planning, it can be easy to let some things fall by the wayside. Deciding what restaurant equipment to use shouldn't be one of those things, since cooking equipment can make a big difference.
There are important considerations to be made when choosing the proper machinery for a well run commercial kitchen. Every restaurant is different, and as such, every restaurant needs specific equipment to create their own unique menu and style. There are a few pieces of equipment that an Italian restaurant shouldn't be without.
Besides the basic range and oven options, you should consider investing in a commercial conveyor oven. Italian food often includes the crowd pleasing dish of pizza. Investing in a regular commercial oven means that half of your oven space at any time would be taken up by pizzas, leaving you less space to work with, resulting in a drop of service quality. A dedicated pizza oven is a better choice, as you can use it solely to keep up with pizza orders. However, this kind of oven can be complicated to master and still leaves you with the problem of having to worry about space.
A conveyor oven, on the other hand, is constantly moving the food items through a steady stream of even heat. It can give your pizzas even baking, and because it's constantly moving, it's more efficient for when you're making large batches at once. It also has an effective timer, allowing your chefs to focus on other meals rather than paying attention solely to the pizza.
A large, commercial mixer is another important piece of equipment. The size especially will allow you to create homemade offerings in large quantities. Homemade pizza dough and pasta dough are sure fire ways to shoot your restaurant's food quality to the top. With a large commercial mixer, it's easy to create these items in large volumes and keep up with demand.
A dedicated pasta cooker can be useful as well, as boiling in pots of water on the range will waste space and take longer than is convenient. Conversely a pasta cooker will allow you to keep what is likely your most popular food item constantly cooking.
There are many other types of restaurant equipment that could be useful, just look at your menu and don't forget about this important decision.