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I've shot food in a non-food studio twice. Both times ended in tears. The first, a client's chicken dish slowly cooling on a table with no hob nearby to refresh. The second, a set dressing that required an onion sliced for a steam hero shot and no knife in the building.

If you shoot food or recipe content regularly, a proper kitchen-equipped studio isn't a luxury. It's the difference between getting the shot and spending the day compromising.

What a real food studio actually has

Working hob and oven. Sounds obvious. You'd be surprised. Gas is ideal because you can see the flame and modulate heat instantly. Induction is acceptable — most food stylists have adapted to it. Electric ceramic is worst because response is too slow for a plating sequence.

Prep space. A food shoot doesn't happen at the camera position. It happens at a second bench where the stylist can work — where they can chop, plate, wipe, re-plate. Eight feet of clear counter minimum. A proper food studio has this as standard. A "kitchen studio" that is really a small domestic kitchen with a camera in front of it does not.

Fridge and freezer. Two fridges ideally. One for ingredients you're bringing in, one for finished plates waiting their turn. A food shoot can generate twenty plates by lunchtime. Without decent cold storage they're inedible by shoot time.

Running hot and cold water, at two sinks minimum. You need a prep sink and a wash-up sink. A single domestic sink becomes a bottleneck that kills shoot speed.

Natural light or a daylight setup. Food looks wrong under warm tungsten for most modern briefs. You want either north-facing windows or a daylight-balanced flash/LED setup. Mixed light is worse than nothing.

Ventilation. Real extraction. A big shoot generates steam, smoke and smells. A studio without proper ventilation is unworkable by midday.

The prop room question

This is what separates a good food studio from a great one.

A prop room — sometimes called a stylist's pantry or dressing room — is a space stocked with plates, bowls, boards, linens, backgrounds, cutlery, glassware. Mix-and-match dressings for every style brief you might get.

A well-stocked prop room saves you a day of sourcing before every shoot. You arrive, the stylist picks through the shelves, and you're building sets in the first hour instead of driving around props houses or ransacking your own cupboards.

What to look for in a listing: how many plate options, how many background surfaces (marble, wood, slate, painted), what kind of linens, whether there's a dedicated lifestyle section with homewares and vases. A studio that says "we have props" but doesn't tell you what's in the collection has probably not stocked for professional food shoots.

Prop hire from commercial houses — Barnaby's, Backgrounds UK — is typically £50-200 per item for a day. A studio with a decent in-house prop collection is saving you £200-500 of prop hire per shoot, plus the time of arranging it. That's significant.

The backgrounds thing specifically

Food needs surfaces. A recipe shoot with 12 different dishes shot on the same surface looks like a bad website. You want 4-8 distinct surface options minimum.

The best food studios have these built into the space — painted wooden flats, marble slabs, concrete panels, distressed metal trays, wood planks with different finishes. All sitting in a rack, ready to grab.

Without these, you're hauling your own surfaces or buying temporary flats on the morning of shoot and wasting an hour. Or shooting against whatever plain table the studio has, which always looks amateur.

Gas, the quiet dealbreaker

Recipe video is booming. Everyone wants the hero shot of flames licking a pan, the steam rising from a wok, the sear on a steak. That requires gas. Induction can do most of it, but you can't get visible flame — and flame is what makes cooking content look alive.

If you shoot any kind of hot-food video content, a gas hob is close to essential. Ask specifically. A lot of "kitchen studios" are induction-only, which is fine for stills but limiting for video.

Bonus points for a portable gas ring the stylist can move around for close-up cooking shots. Serious food studios have these.

London food studio options

London has a proper food-studio ecosystem. Spaces in Hackney, Bermondsey, Peckham and Shoreditch purpose-built for food shoots. Expect £500-1,200/day for the good ones, more for the premium options with extensive prop rooms.

The tell for a proper food studio: their portfolio will be 80%+ food and recipe work. Not "we do everything including food". Specialists run better food studios because they understand what gets the shot.

Most London food studios charge for the prop room separately — sometimes a flat fee (£50-100 for the day), sometimes nothing because the props draw the booking. Read the fine print.

Manchester and the north

Manchester has a decent cluster of kitchen studios too, especially out toward Media City. Prices run 30-40% below London equivalents.

The north shoots a lot of food content for supermarket clients and big food brands — there's been growth here over the last few years. The studios reflect that. Expect similar spec to London, cheaper rates, and slightly smaller prop collections (though the good ones are still generous).

DIY kitchen studios — when they work

If you shoot food regularly and have the space, building your own is sometimes cheaper than studio-hiring every month. The setup cost is £3,000-8,000 for a functional kitchen corner in an existing studio or garage: two hobs, a sink, counter space, a rack of props, a few background surfaces. Versus £500-700 per day hiring out.

Break-even is 10-15 shoot days. If you're doing one or two shoots a month, that's less than a year to recoup.

The downside: you're committed to one setup, one light orientation, one set of props. A hired studio gives you different options every time. For serious creators, having both — a home setup for tests and regular shoots, a proper hired studio for bigger commercial jobs — often makes sense.

The things only food shooters know

Ice matters. A food studio with an ice machine or proper ice dispenser saves you running out at 10am. Seems trivial. Is not.

A stand mixer. Most food stylists have strong opinions on mixer brand. A studio with a decent KitchenAid or equivalent is one less thing to haul.

Parchment paper, cling film, foil, kitchen roll — consumables. A good food studio stocks these. A cheap one makes you buy your own every morning.

Blender. Someone will want something blended. Having one on site saves a second trip.

Blow torch. For caramelising, searing tops, steam effects. Professional food studios have these. Also stock-photo studios masquerading as food studios do not.

What to ask before booking

Can I see photos of your prop collection?

What's the cooker setup — gas, induction, electric? How many burners?

How many background surfaces do you have and what are they?

Do you have a separate wash-up area from the prep area?

What's your ventilation like — is there a proper extractor?

Is natural light available, and if so, which direction?

Are consumables (foil, cling, kitchen roll) included or do I bring my own?

If the studio can answer all of these confidently, they're a proper food studio. If they pause on three or more, they're a general studio with a kitchen corner, and you'll pay for that on shoot day in wasted time.

Pricing a food shoot

Food shoots run longer than most shoots. A batch of 8-12 recipe cards is typically 1.5-2 days, not one. The cooking, styling and reset time is slower than most photographers anticipate on their first food brief.

Budget for:

Studio: £500-1,200/day London, £350-700 regional.

Food stylist: £500-800/day.

Ingredients: £150-400/day (usually overspending because you buy triples of everything to have backups).

Props (if not included): £100-300/day.

Home economist or second stylist for complex shoots: +£300-500/day.

A full day of recipe content — say 6 dishes shot — runs £1,500-2,500 minimum, all-in. Content creators doing their own work save on the stylist but add their own time cost. Agencies and brands should expect the full number.

The mistake I keep seeing

Creators booking "kitchen studios" that are really just studios with a sink and a microwave. They show up on shoot day expecting to work properly, discover half the kit isn't there, and lose two hours of light improvising.

Don't skimp on the venue for food work. The studio is doing more work for you than in almost any other shoot type. The prop room, the kit, the prep space — it's all part of why you're paying what you're paying.

Finding them

Food studios are scattered and specialist. Most don't appear on generic studio search results because generic search doesn't filter for "kitchen equipped" or "prop room". You have to specifically look.

On Creative Studio Hire you can filter for studios with kitchens and food-shoot specialisation across the UK. The directory's free to use, studio owners don't pay commission, and the listings go into the kind of detail food shooters actually need — which is the point really, because generic "kitchen available" descriptions don't tell you if the hob is gas or electric.

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