As the coronavirus pandemic eases, restaurants are opening back up again – that said, the US was never one to shy away from good food, with 6500 restaurants opening in one of the worst months of the pandemic alone! At any rate, new restaurants are popping up left-right, and center and pre-existing restaurants are looking to up their game in the kitchen. Whichever side you land on, you’ll be looking for a commercial oven. But before you go ahead and by one, ask yourself the following three questions:
Gas or Electric?
While gas has previously been the gold standard for the professional kitchen – and continues to be when it comes to cooking hobs – developments in electric ovens have made stark the shortcomings of the gas oven. For a start, though gas ovens come up or down to temperature very quickly, heat distribution can be inconsistent in comparison to electric. Gas ovens are usually not supplied with electricity at all, meaning electric ovens come with the benefit of active fans for heat circulation and regulation.
Whichever way you fall, make sure to find an oven that utilizes tactile controls with which to change temperature and settings. Gas ovens largely utilize have gas inlet valves which you can vary via analog knobs, while electric ovens use rheostats to vary the electrical current flowing through the hob elements. Both of these are also easily replaceable in the event of a malfunction.
What Kind of Commercial Oven?
There are different categories of ovens for different purposes; familiarize yourself with all the different options available to you, and consider which one might best suit your kitchen. The most common kind of oven is simply a standard oven, wherein heat is generated from the bottom and radiates upward through the space inside. Convection ovens are the next step up, with a similar design but the inclusion of fans to better distribute heat – resulting in quicker and more even cooking. These are particularly popular workhorse ovens in many professional kitchens – but so too are combi ovens, which can generate steam as well as to conduct dry-heat convection cooking. The combi oven enables swift steaming on a tray instead of via a steaming basket, and can allow you to stew in the oven instead of on the hob. The advantages of this are better heat regulation than over a single heat source below a pan, and less hands-on attention to the cooking dish as a result.
What Kind of Restaurant is it For?
The easiest way to narrow down the kind of oven in which you should invest is to consider the needs of your kitchen specifically. What is your restaurant? What does it serve, and does it have any specific specialties? If you are a steakhouse known for certain braised dishes, your kitchen might benefit more from a cook-and-hold oven, which utilizes low temperatures to slow-cook meats and keep them at serving temperature, than a standard oven. If you are a pizza parlor, conveyor ovens would enable you to cook your pizzas quickly and to order, while dealing with significant volumes of orders.
