Commercial Kitchen Utensils

Use silicone anywhere near a hot pan. The high heat spatulas and spoonulas are silicone over a firm core, and they will sit in a pan of hot sauce or scrape out a hot pot without softening. Ordinary plastic and polycarbonate tools are made for prep and service rather than cooking, and they will deform, mark and eventually melt against a pan edge or a hot element.

High heat tools are branded and coloured as such, so they are easy to pick out on a bench. Keep the plastic tools on the cold side of the kitchen and buy silicone or stainless for the stove. A melted spatula in a pot of sauce means the sauce goes in the bin, which costs far more than the spatula did.

One-piece stainless will, every time, which is why it is still the default on a busy line. Silicone handles and the high heat tools are made for machine washing as well. The problems are wood, and any hollow or bonded handle that water can get inside, because it never dries out in there and the handle eventually splits or works loose.

Colour coded plastic handles hold up in normal use, but the colour fades over a couple of years of hot washes, and that matters if the colour is doing a food safety job. Buy a spare set, check them regularly, and take any cracked utensil out of service, because a split handle traps food and can't be cleaned out.

Yes, if the colours are being used to keep raw and ready-to-eat work apart, because the tongs touch the same food the board does. Hygiplas serving tongs come in the same six colours as the boards — red, blue, green, yellow, brown and white — so one colour means the same thing everywhere in the kitchen.

Colour coding is also the simplest system for casual staff to follow and for an inspector to check at a glance. White tongs suit a buffet, where each dish gets its own pair and a colour code would only confuse guests.

Buy in multiples of what a section needs rather than one of each: two or three pairs of tongs per station, several spatulas, and more ladles than the roster suggests. Utensils go out with the bins, into the wash and never back, or into a bain marie tray that gets emptied. Every kitchen loses them, so order enough to allow for it.

REO prices on utensils are sharp, and the price per piece improves again when the sets and the colour coded packs are ordered together, so one proper order at fit-out costs less than a year of replacing pieces one at a time. Keep a reserve box in the storeroom and count what is on each section at the end of the week.

Use stainless for anything hot. Stainless tongs grip better, they don't soften, and a locking pair takes up less room on a rail. Plastic and colour coded tongs are for cold work and service — salads, buffets, bread and garnish — where the colour matters more than the heat does.

Length depends on how far the hand needs to be from the heat. A 230mm pair suits plating and salad work, a 300mm pair is the general kitchen size, and 400mm and longer is for a chargrill, a fryer basket or the back of an oven. Buy two or three lengths and store the long ones with the grill, so they do not end up at the salad bench and stay there.

Use portioners and ladles, and set the size once. The stainless portioners come in numbered sizes, and the number identifies the portion being served, so once a number is matched to a dish every serve after that is the same size and the food cost holds.

Ice cream scoops work the same way and have coloured caps so staff can pick the right one quickly. Measuring cups and spoons cover the recipe side, and a piston funnel is worth having if containers are being filled with sauce or batter. Squeeze bottles are the other half of it, because a fixed nozzle puts out the same amount of sauce every time and a spoon never will.

Buy the tools used every service first. Two or three pairs of tongs, a couple of high heat spatulas, a solid turner and a slotted one, a balloon whisk, a ladle or two, a fat skimmer if there is a fryer or a stockpot going, and squeeze bottles for oil and sauces. Then a set of measuring cups and spoons, and a peeler.

After that it is the section-specific tools. A grill needs long tongs and a scraper. A fryer needs a chip scoop and a skimmer. A pastry bench needs whisks, silicone moulds and a scraper. A pass needs portioners, sauce bottles and a probe.

Put a stainless pot or a rail on each bench to hold them, because tools left flat on a bench end up in the wash with the pans.

Anything metal. A stainless turner or a pair of tongs will score the coating on the first pass, and once it is scored it starts to lift. Keep silicone, nylon or wooden tools with the non-stick pans, and keep the metal tools with the stainless and the cast iron.

Buy a set of high heat silicone spatulas and spoonulas for the pans that need them and store them with those pans instead of in the general tool pot. Non-stick is a consumable in a commercial kitchen whatever you do, and metal tools take years off a pan that would otherwise last. Order them at the same time as commercial cookware.

Fit a rail or a stainless pot on each bench so the tools stay on the section instead of going into the wash-up pile, which on its own cuts what a kitchen loses. Hang the long-handled tools where they are used, so the grill tongs live by the grill and the fryer skimmer by the fryer. Colour coded tools go back to their own spot, so anyone working the section can find them.

Dry them before they are put away. Stainless will pit if it's stored wet in a closed drawer, and water sitting inside a hollow handle is what causes the split. Keep silicone tools out of a hot cupboard when they are not in use, and store mortars, moulds and mitts on a shelf rather than in a drawer where they get crushed.