Need ideas for an outdoor kitchen

Cafe Society
1

The good news, my friend is going to build me an outdoor kitchen to make up for the favors I’ve done him, and to work off the money he owes me.

The bad news, he dropped a couple of tons of granite in my yard today, so I have to get this started or listen to the wife complain about the pile of rock.

He’s a good enough mason to do the stone work. I’ve got enough pieces of iron around to handle doors and lintels. I can get the metal mesh for grates and such.

I need some ideas for what to build. I’m thinking it should have an open grill, a smoker, a couple of propane burneds, a sink, a small refrigertor, and a counter top. Anybody have links, pictures, ideas, experience?

2

If you’d consider a wood-fired pizza oven (and you should) this is a good site.

And here’s a home-made tandoor oven.

This site has some outdoor kitchen forums in with the wood oven stuff.

3

So what’s the diff between a pizza oven and a tandoor? We’ve been talking for a while about building a wood-fired pizza oven. But I’ve recently discovered na’an…

4

Thanks. These are great ideas. I make grilled pizza in the summer, but a real pizza oven isn’t going to fit indoors anyway. That would be a great idea. And a tandoor!!! That will keep my wife from complaining. I’m trying to incorporate something like an Argentine Asador as well (if I spelled that right).

5

This shows naan cooking on the walls of the tandoor, which is cylindrical with coals on the bottom and which opens from the top. You can cook a naan in a pizza oven, but you can’t cook a pizza in a tandoor. The tandoor is also good for sword-sized skewers that stand upright and lean against the top of the walls.

6

Sunset magazine first featured anadobe oven back in 1971. It looks easy to make. You can make bread, pizza, roasts, and vegetables.

7

Looks like you have the start of a great outdoor kitchen.
One thought - our neighbors, back in the late 1950’s, built a real looking stone well, with a wooden roof and a crank for the hanging bucket, etc. and basically used it as a cooler for beer and sodas, etc.
As kids, it was really cool (literally and figuratively) to go to the well, reach down and get a cold drink.
You might update that with a real refridgerated area below, but if not, even the old fashion “dump in ice and add drinks” to the well was fun for large parties.

8

Well we already have a canoe that has only been used for the ‘boat full of beer’ at our parties. But this is an interesting concept. Right now I’m trying to calm my wife down about receiving our new outdoor kitchen in kit form, i.e., a pile of granite in the yard.