A hob is not a kitchen

Most apartment kitchens we walk into already have a window that cannot move, a pipe that cannot move, and a run of wall shorter than the catalogue page. The first question is not “which hob”. It is where the wet work happens, and where the things you use twice a day will live.

Indian cooking is not only heat. There is soaking, grinding, washing, and a dabba that comes off the shelf before the pan is even on. If those jobs have no corner, they take the dining table, or the passage, or the top of the washing machine.

Give the wet work a place

A sink needs more than a bowl. It needs landing space for a wet plate, a tap that can fill a pot, and a surface that can take a splash. In a short L, that usually means the sink is not squeezed into the return just because the drawing looked balanced.

Next to it — or on the return if the run is tight — the mixer needs a home that is not the floor. A socket, a little depth, and a shutter that closes on the jar. The stone or the board here has to tolerate water. A pretty veneer on that stretch is a future repair.

The oil already has a habit

Watch someone cook once. The oil, the salt, the chilli and the pot they use every day already live somewhere. The drawing should follow that reach, not invent a new one because a tall unit looked good on the elevation.

Closed storage above the wet stretch keeps the bottles from filming with oil. Open shelves look calm in a photograph and collect dust in a Bengaluru summer.

Then place the hob

Once the wet corner and the daily things have a place, the hob is easier. It needs air, a way to wipe behind it, and enough counter on at least one side so a hot pan has somewhere to go. A chimney, a stone and the appliances are bought-in. They belong on the drawing if they are part of the job. They are not the kitchen by themselves.

If the only wall left for the hob is the one with the window, say so early. A pretty island in a room that cannot take one is not a kitchen either.