Forward flow: the principle that draws the plan
Forward flow organises the space so food always moves one way: delivery, storage, prep, cooking, service, then wash-up, without clean and dirty crossing. When the floor area does not allow forward flow in space, you hold it in time, separating operations by slots with cleaning in between.
It is a plan constraint before it is an equipment one. You place the zones and flows first, the furniture second.
The regulatory framework
Regulation (EC) No 852/2004, the Hygiene Package, applies to any business handling food. It requires a food-safety plan based on the HACCP method, which pinpoints where a health risk can arise and how to control it.
The fit-out contractor does not write that plan, but designs a kitchen that makes it workable: clear flows, cleanable surfaces, separated zones. A good kitchen plan makes hygiene easy day to day; a bad one fights it constantly.
Cleanable, durable materials
Surfaces in contact with food must be smooth, washable, non-toxic and hard-wearing. Stainless steel leads for worktops and back-of-house: it does not stain, takes disinfectants and cleans with no effort.
On walls and hard-worked surfaces, compact laminate (HPL, EN 438 standard) gives a dense, seamless surface that is easy to disinfect. You avoid open joints and awkward corners, where residue builds up.
The open kitchen: one more constraint
An open kitchen onto the dining room adds a fire-safety rule: article GC 9 of the ERP rules requires a fixed vertical screen between a large open kitchen and the dining room, stable in fire for fifteen minutes (E 15-S) and in a material rated M1 or A2-s1, d1.
You build it into the drawing from the start. Added later, it often breaks the open-kitchen effect the owner was after.
How much floor area does a professional kitchen need?
There is no regulatory minimum floor area for a professional kitchen in France. No text sets a number of square metres: what the rules require is the outcome, meaning separated zones, flows that do not cross and surfaces that can be cleaned. A small compliant kitchen exists; so does a large non-compliant one.
In practice you size by ratio. Allow 0.5 to 0.75 m² per cover for the kitchen and its back-of-house, with the dining room, stores and toilets on top. That ratio falls as the number of covers rises: a kitchen works better dense, as long as forward flow still holds.
The menu decides before the area does. A short à-la-carte menu, a cook-chill operation and a wood-fired pizzeria do not occupy the same space in the same place. So we start from the menu and the equipment, then check the flows fit the unit, never the other way round.
What the fit-out contractor does, and does not
We design and build the fixed fit-out, the worktops, the panelling and the furniture, within these rules. The operational food-safety compliance rests with the restaurant, its food-safety plan and the health inspections.
Our part is a space that makes hygiene easy: the right flows, the right surfaces, in the right place. We work alongside your kitchen supplier and inspection office, not in their place.
