The room smells of dust and old carpet glue. A stub of pipe out of a wall where a sink used to be, a fuse board last touched during the Falklands, and a lease with your signature on it. Somewhere under all that is a restaurant.
I've walked into that room more times than I can count. And the first thing people want from me is a restaurant kitchen equipment checklist — a list they can price up, tick off and hand to a bank. Fair enough. You need one. But the order you buy in matters more than the list, and almost every checklist online gets that order wrong.
Here's what I mean. Most lists open with refrigeration, because it feels safe and it's easy to price. Refrigeration is not the decision. The cooking suite is. Gas or induction, modular or monobloc — that single choice sets your electrical supply, your extraction spec, your ducting route and your layout for the next ten years. Everything else adapts around it. It does not adapt around anything.
So this checklist runs in the order the money actually gets committed. The suite first. Then the full kit list section by section, with real UK prices excluding VAT. Then sizing, cost bands, bundles, compliance and the mistakes I see most often.
If you want the wider view across all seven venue types — pubs, cafés, hotels, schools and the rest — that sits in our buyer's framework for commercial catering equipment by venue type. This piece is the restaurant deep dive.
— Andrew Pickersgill, Managing Director, eCatering
Start with the cooking suite — it decides everything else
Ask a chef what they want and you'll get a menu answer: six burners, a plancha, a salamander, a static oven under it. Ask an electrician and you'll get a very different answer. Both are right. That's the problem.
Gas. Cheaper per kilowatt to run, familiar to almost every chef who's worked a UK section, and instant to control. It also triggers a BS 6173 gas interlock — gas will not flow unless extraction is proven to be running — and it throws far more waste heat into the room, which means heavier ducting, a bigger canopy and more make-up air. A DW172-compliant canopy on a small-to-mid site typically lands between £2,500 and £6,000 before ducting.
Induction. Cooler to work next to, faster to boil, easier to clean, and it cuts extraction load because you're not dumping combustion products into the canopy. Kitchens run at civilised temperatures. Staff stay longer. The catch is power: a serious induction suite pushes you hard toward a three-phase 400V supply, and you're looking at 22kW-plus per run once combi ovens and pass-through warewashing join it.
Then modular versus monobloc. Modular means separate units — range here, fryer there — bought individually and reconfigurable later. Monobloc means one fabricated suite on a single plinth, seamless, easier to clean underneath, considerably more expensive up front. Independents almost always start modular. There's no shame in it.
Now the part that costs real money. Does the building have three-phase already? Most operators find out after the lease is signed. A Distribution Network Operator upgrade runs roughly £1,500 to £4,000 where the local network has capacity, and up to around £15,000 where excavation or reinforcement is needed. Lead times run weeks to several months.
Weeks to several months. On a lease you're already paying for.
Check the incoming supply before you sign, not after you've bought the oven. Cheapest advice in this article.
The full equipment list, section by section
Right. The list. Eight categories, in the order a restaurant fit-out actually gets specified.
Cooking. Your suite (range, oven, grill, fryer) plus a combi or convection oven behind it. The combi is the workhorse of a modern restaurant kitchen — steam, dry heat and combination in one box, covering roasting, regeneration, baking and holding. Most independents pair one combi with a cheaper convection unit as backup, because a kitchen with one oven closes when that oven fails. Browse commercial ovens.
Refrigeration. Three types, not one. An upright for bulk holding, undercounter units on the line for service-speed access, and a refrigerated prep counter for assembly. The Contender 1200L Double Door Stainless Steel Refrigerator is the standard bulk unit in most sites we kit out. Everything holds at 0–5°C, monitored, no exceptions. Start at commercial fridges.
Freezing. Sized to your delivery frequency, not your menu. Weekly deliveries mean more freezer than you think. The Contender 400L Upright Freezer (FZU066) is £593.31 ex VAT, with the 600L FZU067 at £726.06 ex VAT. See commercial freezers.
Warewashing. An undercounter machine with a 500mm basket handles a tight 40–60 cover site. Past that you want a pass-through hood machine — the Classeq D500DUO is £2,999.00 ex VAT, the Hobart Ecomax F504-20C £3,407.18 ex VAT. Commercial machines run 2–3 minute cycles with a high-temperature final rinse. Domestic ones take ninety minutes and don't sanitise. Compare dishwashers and glasswashers.
Preparation. Stainless tables, sinks, boards. The Quattro 1500mm Twin Bowl Sink is £266.65 ex VAT (the 1800mm is £291.65 ex VAT). A separate hand-wash basin is not optional — it's the first thing an Environmental Health Officer looks for. The Quattro range covers the prep and furniture layer at entry-level pricing.
Extraction. Canopy, filters, ductwork, make-up air. For a back-prep area or secondary line, the Quattro 1200mm Extraction Hood with LED is £349.16 ex VAT (900mm at £321.59 ex VAT). A main cooking line canopy is a bespoke job to DW172 and priced accordingly.
Front of house and bar. Bottle coolers, back bar refrigeration, an ice machine sized to covers plus cocktails plus service water. Undersize the ice and you'll notice on your second Saturday.
Cleaning and hygiene. Not equipment, but a programme — and it goes in on day one, not month three. Detergents, sanitisers, dosing, a written schedule, records. Hygiene ratings get set by habits formed in week one.
The mid-range spine of most of this — fridges, freezers, dishwashers, ovens — sits in the Contender range. That's the line doing the heavy lifting in a working restaurant.
Sizing to covers: the number that drives every decision
One number governs the spec, and it isn't your seat count. It's covers at peak.
40–60 covers, tight menu. One combi plus a convection backup. A 1200L upright, two undercounters, one prep counter. A single 24L fryer will comfortably carry around 300 covers across an evening. Undercounter warewashing. Single-phase will often do it, if you're disciplined about the suite.
80–120 covers. Everything steps up. Twin fryer pots rather than one big one — better recovery, and it solves allergen separation at the same time. Pass-through warewashing, because an undercounter machine cannot turn plates fast enough at 120 covers. Extra refrigeration on the line so chefs aren't walking to the store mid-service. Three-phase becomes near-inevitable.
150-plus covers, brigade kitchen. Sectioned kitchen, multiple combis, walk-in refrigeration, rack warewashing, dedicated pastry and larder refrigeration. At this point you're specifying with a designer, not a checklist.
Average covers is a comfort number. Peak is the number that breaks you, and peak is what you buy for.
The three tiers: what a restaurant kitchen actually costs
Every figure below is equipment only, excluding VAT. It excludes installation, extraction ducting, gas and electrical work, commissioning, and every penny of fit-out. Say that back to anyone who quotes you a number.
- Entry — 40–60 covers, tight menu: £15,000–£25,000 ex VAT, equipment only. Modular cooking line, one combi or convection oven, upright plus two undercounters plus a prep counter, undercounter warewashing, stainless prep and a modest canopy. Mostly Contender, with Quattro filling the furniture.
- Mid — 80–120 covers: £30,000–£55,000 ex VAT, equipment only. Larger suite, a proper combi, twinned fryers, expanded line refrigeration, pass-through warewashing, a fabricated canopy and bar refrigeration with ice.
- Premium — fine dining or a multi-section brigade: £70,000–£120,000+ ex VAT, equipment only. Monobloc suite, multiple combis, blast chilling, walk-in refrigeration, rack warewashing, bespoke stainless throughout.
The honest framing: equipment is typically 40–50% of total fit-out spend. If someone quotes you £40,000 of kit, budget to find roughly £80,000 overall. We've broken the whole picture down in how much it costs to open a restaurant in the UK — read it before you finalise a business plan.
Bundles built for restaurants
Piecemeal buying is how opening dates slip. Five suppliers, five lead times, and your launch is set by the slowest one — plus mismatched worktop heights and five warranty conversations when something fails.
Bundles fix most of that. Prices as listed:
- The Starter Kitchen, £2,199.99 — Contender 1200L Double Door Fridge, Contender 400L Upright Freezer and a Quattro 1200mm Prep Table with overshelves. The cold-and-prep spine of a new restaurant in one delivery.
- The Pizza Kitchen, £1,599.99 — Contender 48L Spiral Dough Mixer (three-phase), Contender Single Deck Pizza Oven (4 × 13", single-phase), dough tray and blue steel pans.
- The Asian Kitchen, £899.99 — a concept-led starting point for wok-forward and pan-Asian menus.
- The Butchery Bundle, £699.99 — Quattro 12" Meat Slicer, Quattro 3L Sausage Stuffer and an Italinox 120kg/hr Meat Mincer, for anyone breaking down their own meat.
Units matched for footprint, voltage and shelf height, one consignment, one warranty route. Start from a bundle, then bolt on. See the full set at restaurant equipment bundles, or browse everything we stock for restaurant kitchens.
Compliance: HACCP, allergens and the extract system
This is the section people skim. Don't.
Food Safety Act 1990 and HACCP. A documented food safety management system, with temperature logs, cleaning schedules and corrective actions recorded. Not a folder you buy and shelve — a live record.
Natasha's Law. If you pre-pack anything for direct sale — a sandwich in the counter fridge, a salad box, a wrapped cake slice — it needs a full ingredient list with the 14 allergens emphasised. Plenty of restaurants trip into scope without realising it.
Allergen matrix and training. Under the Food Information Regulations you need accurate allergen information across the menu and staff trained to give it. Design the separation into the layout — retrofitting a segregated prep zone costs roughly three times what building it in does.
DW172 and BS 6173. DW172 is the BESA specification for kitchen ventilation that EHOs, insurers and consultants benchmark against. BS 6173 governs the gas interlock. TR19 grease duct cleaning records get requested by your insurer after a fire, not before one.
FHRS. Displaying your rating is mandatory in Wales and Northern Ireland, voluntary in England — customers look it up regardless.
Fire risk assessment. It must cover the extract system specifically. Grease-laden ductwork is the most common serious fire risk in a restaurant.
Seven mistakes we see in new restaurants
- Buying kit before checking the power supply. The DNO does not care that your combi has already arrived.
- Specifying for average covers instead of peak. Your fryer doesn't fail on a Tuesday.
- Leaving extraction and installation out of the budget. Canopy and ducting can cost more than the cooker under them.
- Putting domestic appliances in a commercial kitchen. EHO will fail it, and your insurer may decline the claim that follows.
- One big fryer pot instead of two smaller ones. Worse recovery on a Friday, and a real allergen problem when fish, chicken and vegan items share oil.
- No hygiene programme until the first inspection. Ratings are earned in week one.
- Buying the suite before measuring the doorway. I wish this one were rarer.
Seven. There's an eighth about warranty response times — a cheap dishwasher with a ten-day engineer SLA is not a cheap dishwasher — but seven is enough to be going on with.
When to bring in a Key Account Manager
There's a point where a website stops being the right tool. I'd rather tell you where it is.
Bring in a Key Account Manager when you're fitting out from an empty shell; when three-phase or gas installation is in play; when you need bespoke stainless fabricated to the room's real dimensions; or when total spend passes around £10,000. Below that, bundles and category pages get you most of the way.
Our Key Account Managers put it more plainly than I do. Send us the floor plan and the fuse board photo before you send the wish list. We've spent afternoons in London and Manchester kitchens where a beautiful suite was already sitting on a pallet, and the room simply couldn't take it. Twenty minutes early saves twenty thousand late.
You can see who you'd be dealing with on our meet the team page. And if cashflow is the constraint rather than the plan, look at what interest-free credit and lease finance do to your opening month before you commit capital.
Frequently asked questions
What equipment do I need to open a restaurant in the UK?
Eight categories: a cooking suite (range, oven, grill, fryer), a combi or convection oven, full refrigeration (upright, undercounter and prep counter), freezer capacity, a dishwasher, prep tables and sinks, an extraction canopy, and front-of-house refrigeration with ice.
That's the baseline. What changes is scale — a 45-cover bistro and a 120-cover brasserie need the same eight categories in very different sizes. Start from peak covers and work backwards.
How much does a commercial restaurant kitchen cost to equip?
Budget £15,000–£25,000 for a 40–60 cover site, £30,000–£55,000 for 80–120 covers, and £70,000–£120,000-plus for fine dining or a full brigade kitchen. All figures are equipment only, excluding VAT, installation, extraction and fit-out.
Equipment is typically 40–50% of total fit-out spend, so roughly double the figure for a realistic all-in number. Total UK commercial kitchen setup commonly lands between £30,000 and £150,000.
Gas or induction for a restaurant kitchen?
Gas is cheaper to run and familiar to most chefs, but triggers a BS 6173 interlock and heavier DW172 ducting. Induction cuts extraction load and transforms working conditions, but pushes you toward a three-phase 400V supply. The building's existing services usually decide it.
If three-phase is already in the building, induction is worth serious thought — kitchen conditions and staff retention are commercial factors, not soft ones. On single-phase with no easy upgrade route, gas is the pragmatic answer.
Do I need three-phase electricity for a restaurant?
Not always. A tight 40–60 cover kitchen can run on single-phase with 13A and 32A appliances. You need three-phase for combi ovens, pass-through and rack dishwashers, large deck ovens, bratt pans and induction suites — typically 22kW-plus per run.
A DNO connection costs roughly £1,500–£4,000 where network capacity exists, rising to around £15,000 where excavation is required. Lead times run weeks to several months, so establish what the building has before signing anything.
What size dishwasher does a restaurant need?
An undercounter machine with a 500mm basket suits roughly 40–60 covers. Above that, specify a pass-through hood machine — it turns racks far faster and handles the plate volume a busy service generates. Both run 2–3 minute cycles with a high-temperature final rinse.
Step-ups include the Classeq D500DUO pass-through at £2,999.00 ex VAT and the Hobart Ecomax F504-20C at £3,407.18 ex VAT. Pass-through machines generally need three-phase — another reason to settle your supply early.
Should I buy restaurant equipment as a bundle or individually?
Bundles are usually the better route for a new opening. They cost less than the sum of the parts, the units are matched for footprint, voltage and worktop height, they arrive in one consignment, and there's a single warranty route. Restaurant bundles start from £699.99 as listed.
Buy individually when you're replacing one failed unit, or when your concept needs something a bundle can't cover — a specific wok range, a particular deck oven. Most operators do both: bundle the spine, buy the specialist kit separately.
Where to go next
You've got the checklist. Now put it in order.
- Settle the cooking suite and the power supply first. Everything else is downstream of that one decision.
- Price the cold and prep spine as a bundle rather than a blank list — start at restaurant kitchen bundles.
- Work through the full range on our professional restaurant equipment page, front and back of house.
- Sanity-check your numbers against the real cost of opening a restaurant in the UK.
- Opening something else? Same checklist for pub kitchens and hotel kitchens.
- For the cross-venue view, go back to our commercial catering equipment framework.
That empty shell with the dust and the old pipework tells you more than any list will. Stand in it. Work out where the line goes, where the plates come back, and where the extract can physically run to atmosphere. Then buy the suite and let the rest arrange itself around it.
Thirty-odd years in, that's still the whole job.
— Andrew
Prices shown excluding VAT as of 9 August 2026 and are subject to change. Bundle prices are as listed on site. Cost bands cover equipment only and exclude installation, extraction, services and fit-out. Always check product specifications to ensure equipment meets your kitchen's requirements.
This article is for informational purposes. Business and finance decisions should account for your specific circumstances, local regulations, and professional advice where appropriate.
