Celebrity Chefs Share Their Best Tips For Giving Your Kitchen A Professional Touch

A professional kitchen thrives on structure, cleanliness, and a relatively strict order of operations — and who's to say that can't be implemented in a home kitchen? Adopting the practices of a restaurant environment helps streamline cooking, giving you more space to be creative and hone your craft. You don't need to transform your entire home kitchen into a professional chef's workspace, with the pricey commercial gadgets found in a Michelin-star restaurant; a handful of simple tricks from commercial kitchens — most of which cost next to nothing — can transform cooking from a dull chore into an exciting experiment.

I asked six celebrity chefs — JJ Johnson, Angie Mar, Kyle Connaughton, Jeff Ramsey, Antonia Lofaso, and Sarah Thompson — how they give their home kitchens a professional touch to make cooking more ergonomic. They shared their pro tips with me just before this year's Revelry Culinary Weekend 2025. All of the chefs are participating in the upcoming event at the Wynn Las Vegas resort, where they'll cook for a crowd of festival participants, showing off their skills in a multi-day epicurean spectacle — get your tickets here.

These home cooking tips from seasoned chefs offer a glimpse into the methods that allow them to serve so many guests with speed and efficiency. Often, it's the small, precise details that transform a meal from a rushed obligation into a dish you can be proud of.

Clutter is a recipe for disaster, no matter what you're trying to create, but especially when cooking. "My best tip is to focus on getting organized," says Chef JJ Johnson. "In a professional kitchen, we call it mise en place, which is French for 'everything in its place.'"

It might sound like a complicated technique that only the most skilled of chefs can master, but mise en place is actually a very simple concept that's a must in all commercial kitchens, yet it's easy to overlook at home. "It's about taking a few minutes before you start cooking to chop all your vegetables, measure out your spices, and get all your tools ready," says Johnson. Doing so can make cooking less chaotic and messy. "You'll be faster, more efficient, and you'll actually enjoy cooking more."

Chef Angie Mar also endorses this pre-cooking ritual of organization. She reminds home cooks to date and label their ingredients, which is a customary practice in restaurant kitchens. Whether it's fruits, vegetables, meats, or spices, everything is cleaned and labeled in a clear, airtight (and preferably stackable) container to maximize efficiency. She recommends this method for both refrigerated and pantry items, which should always be rotated to keep food fresh.

Unlike a restaurant, which often has ingredients coming and going in and out of the kitchen for seasonal specials, our home kitchens usually see a lot of the same ingredients and recipes for years at a time. We like what we like, and we're creatures of habit, so we tend to make the same weeknight meals on repeat. If you can identify the types of meals you like to cook, and what ingredients you need on an almost daily basis, don't be afraid to stock up preemptively so you're guaranteed to always have what you need.

Investing in a chest freezer is an absolute game-changer. This allows you to stock up on and freeze plenty of perishable foods for a plethora of recipes, whether it's vegetables that you often use, your favorite meats, or homemade soup stock. Be sure to keep your chest freezer organized with built-in shelves or baskets and by implementing the aforementioned professional kitchen labeling and dating technique. Chef Angie Mar also recommends larders (a particularly cool, dark pantry) for storing staples long-term in a home kitchen. Mar likes to make and then wrap or Cryovac things like fats, compound butters, and base sauces in small servings geared for one or two people. "So if I am in a pinch, or even just have a craving for something delicious, all the best ingredients are at my fingertips when the moment strikes me to cook." 

In the United States, most cooking measurements are done using measuring cups and spoons. But some cooks are unaware that things are done very, very differently in most other parts of the world, because using cups and spoons isn't the most accurate form of measuring ingredients. For many dishes, slight disparities in ingredient quantities don't make a big difference. But using cups and spoons to measure is one of the biggest baking mistakes you're probably making, and it has the potential to ruin more delicate recipes, like intricate sauces or spice blends.

Chef Kyle Connaughton suggests avoiding cups and teaspoons in home cooking to instead get more precise and consistent results from scales and weight measurements. "Recipes that include weights ... are so much more accurate and easy to replicate," says Connaughton. "At SingleThread [Connaughton's restaurant], all of our recipes use weights and we never use cups or any sort of volumetric measurement."

To start weighing your ingredients and getting the most accurate measurements possible, all you need is a quality kitchen scale that measures to the tenth of a gram and some stable cups and bowls that fit snuggly on your scale. A lot of recipes in the U.S. use volumetric measurements, so start incorporating European recipes into your cooking routine to learn how to use weight measurements in no time.

A common restaurant myth is that high-end commercial kitchens are stocked to the nines with every gadget under the sun, no matter how obscure. But the truth is that you can make a restaurant's worth of different recipes with just a few tools. Ultimately, what really matters is not the number of gadgets that you have in your kitchen, but how durable and high-quality they are.

"Good cutting boards, good (sharp) knives, and good pots and pans are essential," says Kyle Connaughton. He also stresses the importance of owning a high-quality oven that's able to cook to accurate, even temperatures. He notes that some ovens, even commercial ovens, can be off by over 25 degrees Fahrenheit. Chef Sarah Thompson reiterates that a good knife is the secret to a kitchen that runs like a well-oiled machine. "It should be sharp, comfortable in your hand, and the right weight and length. No need to purchase a block of knives; one good knife will accomplish what you need."

Chef Antonia Lofaso says that a bit more than just a good knife can take your home kitchen from satisfactory to professional levels of efficiency. "A well-organized refrigerator with proper compartments helps reduce food waste and keeps you in the right mindset," she says. "If you're serious about cooking at a professional level at home, start with high-end appliances and durable tools. Invest in your kitchen, and you're really investing in yourself."

When designing home kitchens, we sometimes forget to factor in the possibility of entertaining guests. It's obviously crucial to make your kitchen a cozy place where you'll enjoy cooking and eating, but it's also important to ensure that your guests feel comfortable and welcomed in your kitchen with plenty of places to relax — and maybe even jump in and help prepare a meal.

"Invest in a good kitchen island with ample seating," says Jeff Ramsey. If you have the space for one, choosing a kitchen island is a great way to make your guests feel at home. "Not only can it be a beautiful statement piece to any kitchen, but it can also be a gathering place for friends and family to create memories," Ramsey says.

If you don't have the space or budget for a kitchen island, make sure to have enough cozy chairs at a small breakfast nook in your kitchen. Keep the table dressed and stocked with everything that your guests might need to enjoy a delicious homemade meal.

Revelry Culinary Weekend will take place from September 19 through 27, 2025, at the Wynn Las Vegas luxury resort. The event will feature dozens of world-famous chefs demonstrating their expertise for food lovers in the iconic and exhilarating atmosphere of culinary mecca Las Vegas, Nevada. Tickets are available here.