A common term for a kitchen that is used for training purposes

Question

I am surprised to be facing a problem finding an established term for a kitchen that is used for education and training purposes.

In German we have the very common term Lehrküche (teaching kitchen). This means a kitchen in e.g. an adult education centre or in a regular school where people can learn cooking, etc.

I checked in various resources and dictionaries. Stunningly, my large printed German-English dictionaries simply do not have the word.

In "Linguee" (a database of translated texts) I find all kind of expressions used, e.g.

demonstrational kitchen

teaching kitchen

instructional kitchen

or sometimes even

Lehrküche

(yes, the German word; obviously I am not the only person missing an English word). I get the impression that everybody just invents a word for Lehrküche because there is no established expression in dictionaries...

Question: What would be the most "normal", common term for such a facility in British and American English?

Note: demonstrational kitchen seems the least appropriate for me, as the idea is not the students getting something demonstrated, rather they will practice there, i.e. doing things on their own.

Answer 1

In less formal contexts, a Lehrküche is simply called a training kitchen in English:

He located an unused area in the kitchen, and thought of using this area to accommodate a training kitchen where he would train cooks and other young, interested and talented employees already working in the hotel. The general manager was enthusiastic about the idea and allocated $50,000.— to equip a training kitchen.

The Community Kitchen of West Harlem is soon to move to a newly renovated facility that will include a training kitchen, and is hoping for training funds from the Harlem Empowerment Zone.

In more formal, academic contexts, it is called an instructional kitchen:

Recently many labor-saving layouts and devices have been applied to the instructional kitchen. The entire planning of the space results from an analysis of the labor transaction. — Debra Coleman, Elizabeth Danze, Carol Henderson, Architecture and feminism: Yale publications on architecture, 1996, 241.

The project consists of the construction of a 3,120 gsf facility which will contain an instructional laboratory; instructional kitchen; formal, semi-formal, and informal tea rooms; office; and storage with support areas. — University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign campus), Report of the Board of Trustees 69 (1996), 319.

The Hospitality Management and Culinary Arts Programs are housed in a state of the art facility which includes a demonstration and instructional kitchen adjacent to a 72 seat instructional dining room. A Guide to College Programs in Culinary Arts, Hospitality, and Tourism, 1999.

The last writer notes that not only will students actively train in the kitchen, but chefs will demonstrate cooking methods in the same facility. When people outside the hospitality industry hear demonstration kitchen, however, they're more likely to think of IKEA or a television cooking show than a school of hotel and restaurant management or culinary institute.

Answer 2

The English language (in common with other Indo-European languages) has two ways of referring to an idea. The first is by coining a single word, the second by using a phrase or sentence containing several words. Because languages are different, the choice is different. And even the concept of a single word is a misleading. In German, what is an adjectival phrase in English is frequently rendered as a single “word” — an amalgamation of words without spaces. However the equivalence of the two is evident.

However the tendency, in a language such as German, to make such constructs, leads to a greater frequency and acceptance of instances that would be regarded as clumsy or ugly in educated English. So it is in the current case. One would refer to a “school for trainee chefs” — or some such phrase, without any need to refer to a “kitchen” — an arbitrary choice of one language.