Professional Kitchen Cleaning

Keeping a professional kitchen clean is the only sure-fire of keeping both inspectors and customers happy. Breeding grounds for germs and bacteria, the sous chef has to be rigorous in his cleaning expectations.

When you get your first job as sous chef, it can be a little intimidating taking on a kitchen you barely know. The aim is to make sure the next chef to take over the kitchen is able to start in a clean kitchen and not have to worry about cleaning anything him- (or her-)self. Where many jobs need to be done regularly throughout the day, other only happen weekly.

The best way to ensure a smoothly run kitchen clean-up is to use a 5-segment approach. Everyone in the kitchen should have the chores for one segment: dishes, floors, cooking areas, rubbish bins, linen. By issuing these segment tasks to the people working in the kitchen you know you’ll have the kitchen cleaning done quickly and efficiently.

Why not make use of this checklist?
During each shift, make sure someone – often the dishwasher – is in charge of keeping the rubbish bins under control as well as keeping the dishes, cutlery and glassware washed, dried and ready-to-go.

Keep the line, prep areas and chopping boards wiped down and clean, and scrape down the grills whenever there is a change of meat to be cooked.

Make it easy for everyone to clean on the go, by keeping a pile of clean cloths to hand. Also, keep a ‘dirty cloths’ bin in chucking distance of the prep area and line.

Always keep both mop and brush close to clean up any spills during service.

At the end of each shift (so, after breakfast, lunch and dinner) allocate jobs. To keep life interesting, rotate the chores each week.

One person, for example, will gather all the linen and get it laundered: the aprons, chef coats for one load, and towels, cleaning cloths and dishcloths for another load. The floor mats should be washed down and floors mopped after the rubbish bins have been taken out: initially get rid of chunks that fell on the floor with a dry mop, next wash the floor with hot, soapy water, which you then dry off with a dry mop.

Prep for the next chef by cleaning and organising the inside of the fridge; the fridge floor needs to be cleaned as well. Put someone in charge of keeping the cooking areas clean: cleaning the fryer, stove and grills, the prep areas and equipment, and line areas.

At the end of the day, when everything is cleaned, mopped, stacked, prepared and ready for the next chef, give the surfaces one last wipe down to make sure there is no wet patches that could harbour germs overnight. Before turning the lights, lock the fridge. Sleep. Repeat.