Living With My Outdoor Kitchen: Is It Worth the Investment?

About 10 weeks ago, I finally completed something I’d been thinking about for a very long time: a proper outdoor kitchen.

I’ve already written about how I chose an outdoor kitchen, the planning process and the installation itself. But arguably, this is the more important article. What’s it actually like to live with an outdoor kitchen once the excitement of installation has worn off?

Ten weeks isn’t exactly a long-term test, but it is long enough for the kitchen to stop feeling completely new. I’ve cooked on it plenty of times, cleaned it, filled the cupboards with BBQ equipment and had people round.

So, have I discovered anything I would change? More importantly, has it been worth the investment?

The short answer is surprisingly little.

I’m Cooking Outside Even More

I cooked outdoors a lot before I had the kitchen. Anyone who has spent more than about five minutes on Love2BBQ will probably have worked that out. But one of the biggest changes since having the outdoor kitchen installed is that I’m cooking outside even more.

I don’t think that’s because I suddenly want to BBQ more. It’s because the kitchen has removed many of the small inconveniences that previously came with outdoor cooking.

I’ve now got a proper preparation area, my cooking equipment is where I need it, and there’s plenty of storage, including the fridge. Rather than carrying ingredients and equipment from the indoor kitchen to the BBQ and back again, it feels like I’m actually cooking in a complete outdoor kitchen.

I’ve noticed the difference particularly with low & slow cooks.

If I’m smoking something before moving it into a braise, I can now do that whole transition outside. I’ve got the worktop space to get everything ready, take the meat off the BBQ, prepare the braising liquid and get everything back onto the heat without constantly disappearing into the house.

It sounds like a relatively small thing, but when you’re several hours into a cook it makes the whole process so much easier.

That’s really where the outdoor kitchen has started to prove its worth for me. It’s not just about having somewhere nice for the BBQs to live. It’s made the actual process of outdoor cooking easier.

And because it’s easier, I use it more.

For me, that’s one of the clearest signs that the investment has been worthwhile. An outdoor kitchen doesn’t just give you more equipment; it can make outdoor cooking more convenient and encourage you to use your BBQ more often.

It’s Become a Social Space Too

Something else I’ve really noticed is how people react to the kitchen. We’ve had a number of guests round since it was installed and it has been a huge hit.

Obviously, people notice the kitchen itself. It’s a substantial addition to the garden and it looks fantastic. But what’s been more interesting is how people use the space. People naturally congregate around it.

That was something I wanted when I started planning the kitchen. I didn’t just want a line of cabinets with some BBQs sitting in them. I wanted somewhere I could cook while still being part of everything else going on, and it’s delivered exactly that.

Instead of disappearing off to cook while everyone else is sitting somewhere else in the garden, the cooking has become part of the evening. For someone who enjoys cooking for other people, that’s a big deal.

This is one of the less obvious benefits of an outdoor kitchen. It creates a social cooking space rather than simply providing somewhere to put a BBQ.

Let’s Talk About Those Porcelain Worktops

If there’s one thing I was slightly nervous about when the kitchen went in, it was probably the worktops. They’re porcelain and they’re light.

They look fantastic. The lighter colour contrasts brilliantly with the kitchen and the rest of the space. But let’s be realistic: I cook BBQ.

That means charcoal, ash, smoke, grease, sauces, meat juices, rubs and occasionally me putting something down somewhere I probably shouldn’t.

A pristine light-coloured worktop and BBQ don’t necessarily sound like natural bedfellows.

Ten weeks in, though, I’ve been really impressed.

Yes, they show dirt. There’s no getting around that. If I spill something or get charcoal dust on them, you can see it. The important bit is what happens next: they clean up incredibly easily.  I’m not using anything special on them. I’ve got a bottle of normal kitchen worktop cleaner that I keep outside and I try to give the worktops a wipe down after each cook. I say try because that doesn’t necessarily mean I actually achieve it every time.

Even when I’ve left the cleaning until later, I’ve yet to put anything on them that’s caused me a problem. A spray and a wipe and they come back up looking great.

They also feel extremely durable. Obviously, 10 weeks isn’t enough time to make any grand claims about how they’ll look after several years of outdoor use, so I’ll continue to report back as they get older. But at this stage I have absolutely no concerns about having chosen porcelain worktops for an outdoor kitchen.

Would a darker worktop hide some of the everyday BBQ mess better? Probably. Would I swap mine? No.

The lighter worktops are part of what makes the kitchen look the way it does and, given how easy they have been to clean, I’m very happy with the choice.

Do I Regret Not Having a Gas Grill?

This was one of the decisions I spent quite a bit of time thinking about when planning the kitchen. Gas grills are convenient: turn them on, give them a few minutes and you’re cooking.

But ultimately, I decided not to integrate one into the kitchen.

Do I regret it?

Not at all.

I’ve always preferred cooking over charcoal and the new setup hasn’t changed that. In fact, because everything is so much more convenient now, I’ve found very few occasions where I’ve thought, “I wish I could just turn on a gas grill.”

For the way I cook, leaving the gas grill out was absolutely the right decision.

That’s an important distinction, though. I’m not suggesting everyone building an outdoor kitchen should ditch gas.

If you regularly come home from work and want to quickly grill a couple of chicken breasts or burgers, an integrated gas grill could make perfect sense. If you enjoy longer cooks, live-fire cooking or the flavour and process of charcoal, you may prefer to prioritise charcoal BBQs instead.

An outdoor kitchen needs to be designed around how you actually cook rather than around a checklist of appliances you think an outdoor kitchen should have.

For me, charcoal wins.

The Delivita Needs More Love

There is one bit of kit I need to make more use of: my dual-fuel Delivita pizza oven.

The Delivita has its own area within the kitchen and I deliberately wanted it incorporated into the design. I just haven’t used it as much as I should.

That’s certainly not a reflection on the oven or the kitchen design. It’s entirely down to me.

Having the dual-fuel option means I have the convenience of gas when I want it, without needing a dedicated gas grill taking up space elsewhere in the kitchen.

So perhaps the lesson isn’t that I should have included a gas BBQ. It’s that I need to cook more pizza and make more wood-fired oven dishes.

Challenge accepted.

So What Would I Change?

This is probably the question I would want answered if I were reading this while considering my own outdoor kitchen.

Having lived with it for 10 weeks, what did I get wrong?

The Kitchen Itself? Nothing.

I’m genuinely struggling to come up with something I would change about the CLIPTT kitchen.

The layout works, the cooking positions work and there’s enough worktop space. The materials have performed exactly as I’d hoped.

The fridge was a late addition to the original thinking and I’m very glad I added it. It has made the kitchen more practical and reduced the need to keep going indoors for drinks, ingredients and other essentials.

Most importantly, the kitchen fits the way I cook.

That’s one of the reasons I chose CLIPTT in the first place. Rather than trying to make my cooking equipment fit a predetermined collection of cabinets, we designed the kitchen around the equipment and the way I wanted to use it.

Having now lived with that decision, I think it was absolutely the right approach. If you’re considering an outdoor kitchen, the layout and workflow are more important than simply choosing the largest number of appliances or cabinets.

There are, however, a couple of things around the kitchen that I need to sort out.

My Cupboards Need Some Serious Organisation

When you design an outdoor kitchen, you get very excited about having storage.

“Look at all those cupboards!”

What you don’t necessarily think about is what happens a few weeks later when you’ve filled them with BBQ gloves, thermometers, skewers, pizza tools, rotisserie accessories, brushes, foil, wood chunks, firelighters and the other 700 things you’ve somehow accumulated through years of outdoor cooking.

At the moment, my storage solution could politely be described as evolving.

A less polite description would be that I’ve shoved everything in the cupboards.

It works, but it’s a bit of a mess.

That’s definitely my next project. I need to look at some better internal storage, such as baskets, containers, dividers or some form of drawer system, so everything has a proper home. I don’t want to empty half a cupboard every time I need to find the thing I know is definitely in there somewhere.

Again, that’s not a problem with the kitchen. If anything, it’s highlighted just how much BBQ stuff I’ve accumulated. I may have a problem!!

The lesson for anyone planning an outdoor kitchen is that storage is valuable, but it needs to be organised properly. Think about the equipment you already own, the accessories you use most often and how easily you’ll be able to reach them while cooking.

And Then There’s the Charcoal

The other storage issue is charcoal. I tend to buy charcoal in 10kg bags and they’re not the easiest things to store neatly.

You want the charcoal somewhere convenient and dry, but you don’t particularly want a dirty great bag of charcoal sitting in the middle of your lovely new outdoor kitchen. Once a 10kg bag has been opened, it becomes even more awkward.

At the moment, I haven’t found the perfect solution. I’m considering whether some form of sealed container is the answer: something that will take a full bag, keep everything dry and make it easy to scoop out what I need.

That’s one of those details I hadn’t really thought about when designing the kitchen.

If you’re planning your own outdoor kitchen and cook predominantly with charcoal, think about where your fuel is going to live.

Ten kilograms of charcoal takes up considerably more space than you imagine when you’re looking at a lovely empty cabinet on a kitchen design. The same applies to wood chunks, pellets, firelighters and gas bottles if you use them.

Would I Choose CLIPTT Again?

Absolutely.

I said throughout the earlier articles that one of the things that impressed me about CLIPTT was their willingness to work with me rather than simply sell me a collection of outdoor kitchen units.

That continued through the installation and, having now lived with the finished kitchen for 10 weeks, I think the end result proves the value of that approach.

The kitchen feels like my kitchen.

That sounds obvious, but when I was researching the outdoor kitchen market, I found plenty of very nice kitchens where I would have needed to change my setup or compromise on the layout to fit their system.

With CLIPTT, we did it the other way around.

The team themselves have also been awesome throughout the whole process.

Would I recommend them based on my experience? Without hesitation.

Is an Outdoor Kitchen Worth the Investment?

An outdoor kitchen isn’t essential. Let’s get that out of the way.

You can produce incredible food on a £100 kettle BBQ sitting on your patio. Spending thousands of pounds on cabinets and porcelain worktops isn’t suddenly going to make your brisket better.

But that’s not really the point. For me, the outdoor kitchen was about creating a space around something I already loved doing, and that’s exactly what it’s done. I’m cooking outside more often. Cooking is easier. Low & slow cooks in particular are easier to manage because I can prep, smoke, braise and generally make a mess without constantly travelling between the outdoor kitchen and the house.

When we have people round, the kitchen has also become somewhere everyone wants to gather. Most importantly, every time I walk outside and see it, I still love it.

There will undoubtedly be little things I tweak over time. I’ll find a better way to organise the cupboards, solve the 10kg charcoal bag problem and, hopefully, fire up that Delivita more often.

But the kitchen itself? I wouldn’t change it. After all the research, planning, decisions and inevitable moments of wondering whether I was spending a ridiculous amount of money on somewhere to cook BBQ, I’m delighted I went ahead with it.

I’m also really glad I chose CLIPTT. For me, an outdoor kitchen has been worth the investment because it has made outdoor cooking more convenient, more social and more enjoyable. It hasn’t made the food magically better, but it has made me more likely to cook outside and spend time in the garden.

That won’t be true for everyone. If you only BBQ occasionally, have limited garden space or prefer to keep cooking simple, a standalone BBQ and a small preparation table may be all you need.

But if you cook outdoors regularly and want a dedicated space that supports the way you live and entertain, an outdoor kitchen can be a worthwhile investment.

Would I do it again?

In a heartbeat.