Air conditioning for restaurants and commercial kitchens
Restaurants have two very different climates under one roof — a dining area where guests should be comfortable, and a kitchen that runs hot and demands serious ventilation. The two need separate thinking, and the kitchen side is as much about extraction and fresh air as it is about cooling.
What makes restaurants and kitchens different
- Two distinct zones — front-of-house comfort versus a hot, high-load kitchen.
- Intense kitchen heat — cooking equipment throws off a great deal of it.
- Ventilation is critical — kitchens need extraction and make-up (replacement) fresh air, not just cooling.
- Humidity and grease — the kitchen environment is demanding on equipment.
- Ambience — diners notice both temperature and noise.
Cooling is not the same as kitchen ventilation
This is the big one for hospitality. Air conditioning recirculates and cools air; it does not extract cooking fumes or supply fresh air. A commercial kitchen needs a dedicated extraction and make-up air system to remove heat, steam and odours and replace them with fresh air — a specialist job that sits alongside, not instead of, comfort cooling. See ventilation vs air conditioning, and treat the dining area and kitchen as two separate design problems.
Systems we’d recommend: for the dining area, VRF/VRV or ceiling cassettes for comfortable, discreet, even cooling; for the kitchen, heavy-duty cooling plus proper extraction and make-up air — a specialist ventilation design.
Compliance: F-gas and possible TM44 inspections apply; kitchen extraction and fresh-air provision carry their own requirements — see ventilation vs air conditioning.
Know exactly what to ask for
Build a free, impartial plan for your space — the right system, the size each room needs, and what good kit looks like. We don't sell or fit units.