Restaurant Kitchen Equipment List Melbourne: A Practical Fitout Guide for Operators

A useful restaurant kitchen equipment list Melbourne is not a product catalogue. It is a station-by-station map of what your kitchen needs to run service, sized to your covers, your menu, and your floor plan. Most lists you find online are 200 items long, padded with everything the supplier sells. The list that matters is one your chef can use, your shopfitter can spec, and your accountant can finance. This guide walks through the six kitchen stations, what sits in each, what to spend, and what new operators get wrong, drawn from forty years at Melbourne Refrigeration and Catering Equipment.

Why a Melbourne Restaurant Kitchen Equipment List Looks Different to a Cafe

A cafe runs on coffee, sandwiches and a tight breakfast or brunch menu. A restaurant runs on a full cooking line, multiple service sessions, and far more refrigeration depth. Where a cafe has one underbench prep fridge and a glass door display, a 100-cover Melbourne restaurant typically runs a walk-in cool room plus three or four prep fridges, a blast chiller, freezer storage, a full hot line with combi oven, and an upright passthrough dishwasher. The dollar gap is often $80,000 or more, even before joinery.

Melbourne adds two compliance dimensions. Local councils, the Victorian Building Authority and Energy Safe Victoria all touch on kitchen compliance, gas appliance installation and exhaust ventilation. Food Standards Australia New Zealand sets the food safety bar Victorian councils enforce locally. A list that ignores canopy size, cool room ventilation or refrigerated holding temperatures fails inspection, and you do not open. We covered the cafe scenario in our essential cafe equipment checklist, and most principles scale up with deeper refrigeration and a full hot line.

The Six Kitchen Stations Every Restaurant Needs

Chefs do not think in product categories. They think in stations. Where the food gets prepped, where it gets cooked, where it gets plated, and where the dirty crockery comes back. Build your list station by station and the kitchen flows. List items in random order and you discover at fitout that the prep fridge is on the wrong side of the line.

Station 1: Cold prep

Where vegetables, salads, garnish, dressings and cold mise-en-place come together. Equipment list: a saladette or insert-top prep fridge with refrigerated wells, two or three underbench prep fridges, stainless prep benches, double bowl sink, food processor, vegetable peeler if menu volume justifies, and a knife storage rack. A 100-cover restaurant typically runs 1.5 to 2.5 metres of saladette top.

Station 2: Hot line

The hot line is the heart of the kitchen. Equipment list: a 4 to 6-burner gas range, a combi oven (or two), salamander, pasta cooker if your menu warrants, char grill, deep fryer, bain marie, and a properly sized exhaust canopy with mechanical extraction. Brand depth across leading commercial cooking equipment separates a hot line that holds up under Saturday service from one that does not.

Station 3: Pass and service

The pass is where the kitchen meets the floor. Equipment list: heat lamps, hot holding bain marie, docket rail, plate warmer, microwaves for quick re-heat tasks, and clear plate storage. Get the pass right and food leaves at temperature, plates do not stack at the kitchen door, and front-of-house picks up the rhythm.

Station 4: Dishwashing

Dishwashing is the silent killer of restaurant service. A 100-cover restaurant turning crockery once or twice per service needs a passthrough dishwasher (sometimes called hood-type), a 1.5 metre pre-rinse station with high-pressure spray gun, racking, and ideally a separate underbench glasswasher behind the bar. Smaller venues run a high-quality undercounter dishwasher in the kitchen alongside a separate glasswasher.

Station 5: Refrigeration storage

This is the category most new operators underestimate. A 100-cover restaurant typically runs a walk-in cool room (6 to 12 cubic metres), two or three underbench prep fridges across stations, a blast chiller for compliant rapid cooling, dedicated freezer storage, and sometimes a dedicated dessert or pastry fridge. The federal Energy Rating program publishes GEMS star ratings worth checking. Our piece on energy-efficient commercial refrigeration goes deeper.

Station 6: Dry storage and shelving

Wire shelving, dry goods racks, FIFO labelling system, and lockable storage for cleaning chemicals separate from food. Cheap to fit out, easy to ignore, but a chaotic dry store quietly costs you in expired stock and slow restock during service.

Forty Years of Hospitality Expertise, Since 1984

Since 1984 we have supplied the hospitality industry with professional advice, reliable equipment and excellent customer service. We have a wealth of experience in all types of projects ranging from international hotels to large and small pubs through to suburban restaurants and takeaway outlets. All our staff are equipped with the knowledge, expertise and creativity to add value to your project.

That experience changes how a restaurant kitchen equipment list conversation goes. When a customer walks in describing a 120-cover modern Australian bistro in Hawthorn, we already know which combi oven pairs with which range, how much prep capacity that menu needs, what cool room footprint will fit their floor plan, and which dishwasher will keep up with brunch rush. Forty years on Station Street means the trade calls us first.

Why Source Your Restaurant Kitchen Equipment List from a Single Multi-Brand Supplier

The Melbourne commercial equipment market is full of single-category sellers. Coffee from one supplier, fridges from another, dishwashers from a third, cooking line from a fourth. Each pushes their own brand. None owns the moment when the combi oven, the prep fridge, the cool room and the dishwasher all need to land on the same week against the same wall. A multi-category supplier coordinates delivery, sorts warranty conversations as one, and turns up to service whichever piece breaks first.

What a Melbourne Restaurant Kitchen Fitout Actually Costs

Hospitality industry sources put a Melbourne restaurant equipment fitout at $80,000 to $200,000 for a small to mid-size venue, with premium fine dining closer to $400,000 once joinery, construction and compliance are included. Equipment is roughly 30 to 50% of total project cost. The variables that move the price:

• Cuisine and menu complexity: A modern Australian bistro with a 60-item menu costs more to fit than a 30-item brasserie.
• Refrigeration depth: Walk-in cool room versus three reach-in fridges is a meaningful spend gap.
• Hot line specification: Combi oven choice (Rational, Unox, Convotherm) and gas range size move tens of thousands.
• New versus used: Quality reconditioned equipment lands 30 to 50% lower with shorter warranties. Our piece on buying used commercial kitchen equipment covers when used makes sense.
• Brand depth: Skope, Williams, Bromic, Scotsman, Waldorf, Blue Seal, Convotherm and Roband outlast budget brands two-to-one and the price reflects that.

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Why Rent When You Can Own, MRCE Fast Finance

A full restaurant equipment fitout is one of the largest single line items in a hospitality project. MRCE Fast Finance spreads the upfront cost without trapping you in a rental cycle that quietly costs the price of the gear twice over.

Five Common Mistakes New Restaurant Operators Make

After 40 years of fitting out Melbourne kitchens we see the same five mistakes repeat. None are fatal alone. Stack two or three together and the kitchen never reaches its potential.

The most expensive of these mistakes over a five-year horizon is the under-spec dishwasher, because it slows every service from day one. The blast chiller mistake is the most legally risky, because it directly affects food safety compliance. Our commercial fridge maintenance tips outline maintenance principles for all the refrigeration in your kitchen.

From Inception to Completion, End-to-End Project Management

From inception to design, throughout installation to completion, let our expert staff oversee your project. No matter how large or small, we work closely with architects and consultants on your commercial kitchen and bar requirements. We arrange qualified service technicians for equipment problems whenever they crop up, a kitchen that's down is a kitchen losing money. At MRCE we aim to keep our customers coming back time and again as their business grows.

That's why we still get calls from operators we first fitted out twenty years ago. They opened a bistro in Carlton, expanded into Fitzroy, and now they're talking to us about their fourth site. Long relationships with the Melbourne hospitality trade come from doing each step properly the first time.

Your Restaurant Kitchen Equipment List Melbourne Partner of Choice

Brand depth across every category your restaurant kitchen needs (Skope, Williams, Bromic, Scotsman, Carrier, Arneg, Waldorf, Blue Seal, Convotherm, Roband, Washtec, Mecnosud), both new and reconditioned used stock when it suits the brief. Free site consultations, full installation, manufacturer warranty, finance options and 24/7 after-sales support. Australia-wide shipping, and we work with your architect, shopfitter or project manager from concept to handover.

Frequently Asked Questions