From skillfully sauteeing vegetables to plating gourmet meals, kitchens are bustling places, and for a functional flow, they need equipment and cleaning tools. One part of a restaurant setup, the kitchen towel, is more essential than you know.
Kitchen towels are constantly close to kitchen workers, and they&#;re so integral to kitchen practices that you might forget about them. However, they swiftly save the day as you encounter spills, splashes and splatters.
Selecting kitchen towels for your enterprise consists of more than choosing a color. There are materials, types, applications and techniques to consider, too. Let&#;s launch into a comprehensive guide to kitchen towels.
What makes a kitchen towel a kitchen towel is simple &#; its role in a fast-paced restaurant environment or a personal kitchen. These towels can help you gain a better grip, keep dishes warm and dry damp surfaces.
Because they have diverse uses in both commercial and residential kitchens, they have a different makeup from regular towels. Especially in the restaurant industry, they have to be strong, long-lasting and thick, as many workers need to reach for them at a moment&#;s notice.
While &#;kitchen towel&#; is a general term, they can fall into a few categories. Bartenders, cooks, assistants, dishwashers and servers all need certain qualities to complement their roles. Depending on their application, they can go under the following categories.
As its name suggests, the bar mop&#;s original application was to wipe up bar messes. Now, bar mops can be a multi-purpose tool, from dabbing away residue on knives to brushing off scraps into the garbage.
Bar mops can stand higher levels of heat, so they can act as a holder for hot pans or serve as a hot pad. Chefs keep them tucked in their aprons to pull out for a quick fix.
Bar mops are usually white, and they can have a colored stripe running down the middle. Restaurant employees often use these stripes to color-code the towels for different applications.
You need a smooth, lint-free towel for drying and polishing kitchenware. You can blot plates, glasses, pots and kitchen appliances with dish towels.
Hand-drying dishes can be a long process. Typical dish towels get moisture off dishes while maintaining a fairly dry state, so you don&#;t have to swap them out frequently.
They&#;re ideal for removing water spots and streaks, and your restaurant dishes can gleam when you serve your food. To keep them unsoiled between dishes, they hang on racks when not in use.
Chefs handle a range of tasks and items through an average day at the restaurant. As such, chefs&#; towels are more specialized for food than other kitchen towels, and chefs keep them on hand at all times.
Chefs&#; towels are practical for swabbing away oil, crumbs and sauces. Since they take in different substances, they have to be heavy-duty and uniquely absorbent. They can also get dew off fresh produce and herbs.
Cooks keep them nearby in a pocket or draped on the shoulder, and they sustain many impacts in your workplace.
After kitchen workers get finished rinsing their hands, it&#;s not sanitary to dry them on the same towels as those you use for messes, dishes or counters. Hand towels remain in reserve for rubbing down hands before returning to the job.
Hand towels are plush, small and come in multiple colors. They stay by the sink for easy access, and they&#;re instrumental in safe food handling.
While it&#;s possible to dry items with them, tea towels are primarily decorative. They can accent food arrangement, and some restaurants use them to encase baked goods in baskets. Tea towels also can line serving trays and tables.
They&#;re a light material, and their fine makeup isn&#;t suited for soaking up liquids. They&#;re not big, measuring about the same as a hand towel.
Why do the materials of kitchen towels matter? They&#;re the determining factor in absorbency, longevity, appearance and sturdiness. The primary materials for kitchen towels are cotton and microfiber, but let&#;s unpack their advantages.
Cotton is the favorite material for kitchen towels because it&#;s fluffy and absorbent. The luxurious look makes even functional towels for the kitchen appear appealing. Their natural properties allow them to be gentle on your dishes and worktops.
The fibers in cotton are a useful distance to pull in plenty of liquid, and in restaurant scenarios, you need to deal with spills fast. They also are resilient from their dense weave, which makes them able to address the cleaning needs of the kitchen.
Microfiber is another popular material that&#;s able to take in more substances than their neutral weight. Swiping dirt and food out of your kitchen is highly effective with microfiber towels.
Microfibers are even tinier than a strand of silk&#;s diameter &#; at this size, they can get into nooks and crannies other materials can&#;t reach. Microfiber can deeply retain small scraps and traces of food, and it&#;s versatile, which solves many kitchen-related problems.
Although kitchen towels are adaptable to your needs, they do have limits. In a restaurant, they should promote health and stick to cleaning applications. Check out what not to do with kitchen towels.
Crumpling your kitchen towels in the corner of your kitchen exposes them to more germs than necessary. As they sit in a heap, they can&#;t fully dry, and there&#;s a potential for them to develop a musty smell.
Counters have spices and leftover food on them that are harmful to designated towels like hand towels and dish towels. Discarding them on the counter also makes them look wrinkly and causes the space to appear unprofessional. Rather than leaving them in a bunch, you can easily drape them over racks or on hooks.
When you&#;re preparing dishes with meat or fish, the juices can get on surfaces. This runoff is unavoidable in the kitchen, but you don&#;t have to scrub it away with kitchen towels.
Using kitchen towels can even extend the scope of the germs. This contamination could cause diseases, and you want to protect your customers from foodborne illnesses. Disposable towels or tissues are better for nipping germs in the bud.
Apart from meat and fish, raw eggs pose some danger to your establishment. It&#;s easy to get remnants on your stovetop or counter when you&#;re cracking large batches of them at a time. Cut down on cross-contamination by following egg safety procedures.
Don&#;t dab up the egg with your reusable towel, though, because you can smear it on other things as you go about your duties. Just like with meat, banish residue with a single-use towel.
Doubling up with your kitchen towels is tempting because you could save time and opt for convenience. However, hand and dish towels get their names for a reason, and they need to remain separate.
In food service, you shield your dishes with gloves, but additional measures to guard food against substances on your hands can help.
The kitchen sink is a surprisingly dirty spot, and it could be even worse than your toilet. From raw particles to various preservatives and dirt, the sink can become a hub for gunk.
As you&#;re checking off your end-of-day duties, don&#;t run your kitchen towel over the sink to dry it.
With continual use, you don&#;t want your towels to get dingy or smelly. To fight off mildew and contamination, it&#;s essential to follow a careful regimen when cleaning your kitchen towels. You can get grime and food particles off your towels with the following tips.
In the bottom of a laundry hamper, your wet kitchen towels can get stinky and risk infecting other items. They can be heavy with water and other liquids, so it&#;s helpful to hang them to air out before starting a wash cycle. Circulation on a clothing line or drying rack can keep your towels in top condition.
When you use towels for deep cleaning and drying purposes, you need a comprehensive cleaning. Fabric softener decreases the potency of kitchen towels, because it creates a barrier on the fibers. Coating the filaments takes away from their ability to absorb, so avoid fabric softener in your kitchen towel loads.
Kitchen hygiene is vital for maintaining a reliable restaurant, and towels need to adhere to guidelines, too. Accumulated particles can form on your towels, but vinegar is a winning solution. Vinegar breaks through the buildup on kitchen towels due to its valuable acidity.
Heat is your friend when it comes to eliminating bacteria, and setting your washing cycle water to hot can thoroughly cleanse towels. Because your kitchen towels go through a lot during the day, a heavy-duty process is appropriate.
Because table cloths, uniforms and towels get clean and dry at different rates, it&#;s better to wash them in a separate laundry load. Towels also generate a substantial amount of lint, which affects other materials. Only fill the wash with kitchen towels to keep them robust.
If you swipe up soy sauce or marinara sauce, it can discolor your kitchen towels. With unsightly marks on your towels, especially multi-use ones, they can take on a dull look. You can spot-treat these stains before you wash them to pinpoint the stubborn blotches. Store-bought stain removers can target beverage and food marks, but they need different water temperatures. Check out these fixes for specific stains:
Both extremes of drying can be tough on your towels. You might be in a rush to get your kitchen towels out of the dryer to store them for the following day, but damp towels can let germs set in. Overdrying can also drain the towels of their quality. Check the kitchen towels periodically to achieve a reasonable level of moisture.
You might still be wondering how frequently you should swap out kitchen towels and run them through the wash. Do you wash them every week or every couple of days? Can you tell when they&#;re dirty enough to change?
The main contributor to this decision is food-related illnesses, because the cleanliness of your towels can defend your restaurant against things like food poisoning. Let&#;s go over two food-related sicknesses, salmonella and staph, to help your establishment thrive and steer clear of sickness.
How frequently you wash the kitchen towels can reduce the chance of people getting sick. You should wash your kitchen towels at least every day. Incorporate kitchen towel cleaning when you wind down the restaurant and close up shop for the day.
When you&#;re running an industrial kitchen, there&#;s a significant demand for towels. You need affordable, bulk orders to gather enough kitchen towels for your staff. At Towel Super Center, we offer a wide array of deals on reliable kitchen towels.
We construct our kitchen towels from top-notch materials that can speedily dry your dishes, employees&#; hands and counters. We also package them to lower shipping costs for optimal savings for your restaurant.
Towel Super Center is the answer to your wholesale kitchen towel needs. If you&#;re looking to stock your restaurant with towels, shop our broad towel selection for your kitchen today.
It&#;s tempting to splurge on a gorgeous towel. After all, they&#;re decor-adjacent. But for most cooks, it&#;s a better investment to buy towels in a pack, spending less per towel. It&#;s worth noting too that a high price point doesn&#;t automatically translate to a better towel. The most expensive towel I tested, the Weston Table Laguna Towel, wasn&#;t as absorbent as my top picks and didn&#;t stand up well to being laundered. My overall favorite, from Zeppoli, comes in a pack of 15 and costs just $1.73 per towel. Your budget will dictate what defines an &#;expensive&#; towel, but, generally speaking, I'd recommend not spending more than $10 per towel.
The Criteria: What to Look for in a Kitchen Towel
Serious Eats
The best dish towels are multipurpose towels that can be used for more than just drying dishes. Look for towels with a strong, tight weave that can stand up to hot cookware, as well as handle a wash/dry cycle without any fuss (although some shrinking is unavoidable in almost all towels). Cotton is favored over linen for its more affordable price point and resistance to rumpling around the edges. Low-pile threads are ideal because they leave behind minimal lint, and make for a more maneuverable towel. If aesthetics are important in your kitchen, choose colored and patterned towels that can hide stains. Finally, don&#;t spend a fortune on any dish towel: the pricier it is, the less likely you are to actually use it.
Our Favorite Kitchen Towels
What we liked: Towels in this style are known as side towels in professional kitchens. They&#;re coveted (and sometimes hoarded) among chefs for good reason: they&#;re incredibly useful for multiple jobs. They&#;re a great choice for mopping spills in lieu of paper towels; in my absorbency test, they soaked up 141% of their weight in water. They didn&#;t leave any lint when used as a dish-drying towel. Best of all, I liked their relatively petite size, which wasn&#;t unwieldy and lent itself well to use as a makeshift potholder. These towels are among the least expensive I tested and come in a large pack. "I still reach for a Zeppoli towel every day. While they've shrunk a bit after many, many washes, they're no less absorbent," says Riddley, who's been using them for a year.
What we didn&#;t like: These towels are surprisingly thirsty, and do become saturated easily. With drying times that can reach hours (during my test, it took five hours to feel fully dry), you&#;ll need to have a bunch on hand while cooking. They stain easily and have a thinner weave than my other top pick, which means they will have to be replaced with greater regularity.
Key Specs
PHOTO: Serious Eats / Henry Wortock
PHOTO: Serious Eats / Henry Wortock
PHOTO: Serious Eats / Henry Wortock
What we liked: This towel hit all the marks. It's made with a low-profile waffle weave for maximum flexibility and maneuverability. It has a strong hem around all sides, which helps it resist warping and becoming misshapen when washed and dried. The generously sized hanging loop is affixed to the center of a side, which makes it easy to hang and keep out of the way when not in use. It dried relatively quickly when wet (three hours and 45 minutes), and hid stains well, thanks to its waffled pattern and neutral-ish color. It also looks nice and is made from organic cotton. I've been using them daily for over a year, and aside from an operator-error-generated burn mark on one (pro tip: don't leave your towels close to the stovetop), they're barely any worse for the wear.
What we didn&#;t like: Coyuchi's towels are on the expensive side, with each one costing close to $10. There was considerable shrinking when washed (three and four inches from either side). I was slightly hesitant to use it for dirty or messy tasks, to keep the aesthetics intact.
Key Specs
FINOHOPE supply professional and honest service.
PHOTO: Serious Eats / Henry Wortock
PHOTO: Serious Eats / Henry Wortock
PHOTO: Serious Eats / Henry Wortock
PHOTO: Serious Eats / Henry Wortock
What we liked: These towels are simple and, as the name suggests, truly classic. They&#;ll seamlessly merge into just about any kitchen&#;s design style, and they&#;re hardworking towels I don&#;t feel like I have to baby or protect from messes. Although some towels with a flatter weave tend to lag in the absorbency department, the crosshatch stitching here meant these towels could handle liquids, whether it was drying dishes or mopping up a spill. Choosing a color is fun, too&#;Williams Sonoma currently has many nice hues.
What we didn&#;t like: In my absorbency tests, it couldn&#;t compare to the impressive performance of the terry cloth varieties&#;but it did dry quicker. The texture is a little rough, and not quite as pliable as the Coyuchi. The hanging hook is attached to a corner of the towel.
Key Specs
PHOTO: Serious Eats / Henry Wortock
PHOTO: Serious Eats / Henry Wortock
PHOTO: Serious Eats / Henry Wortock
What we liked: These towels are incredibly absorbent (with an absorbency rate of 160%). They&#;re perfect for use instead of paper towels, and they&#;re made to be tossed around&#;no need to keep them in pristine condition. They come in a set of a dozen and are a basic, white color (unless you opt for a different hue), and have a &#;no fuss&#; vibe that can be brightened with bleach.
What we didn&#;t like: The looped fibers are relatively loose, and won&#;t last forever. When saturated, this towel is heavy and takes a long time to air-dry. If used to dry dishes, it will leave behind lint.
Key Specs
PHOTO: Serious Eats / Henry Wortock
PHOTO: Serious Eats/Henry Wortock
PHOTO: Serious Eats / Henry Wortock
PHOTO: Serious Eats / Henry Wortock
What we liked: These towels are fantastic for drying hands. They&#;re soft and thick and soak up a lot of water. They&#;re good stand-ins for pot holders when maneuvering sheet pans in and out of the oven. All-Clad&#;s towels were a strong competitor in my staining and cleaning tests, leading me to believe these sturdy towels will last for years.
What we didn&#;t like: They&#;re thick to a fault when confronted with certain tasks. I was hesitant to use them for drying the bowl and stem of delicate glassware, and they were a tight squeeze into narrow lid handles. At $10 a towel, they&#;re pricier.
Key Specs
PHOTO: Serious Eats / Henry Wortock
PHOTO: Serious Eats / Henry Wortock
PHOTO: Serious Eats / Henry Wortock
The Competition
FAQs
What&#;s the difference between dish towels and tea towels?
Tea towels are thin, flexible towels made from cotton or linen&#;they&#;re sometimes called flour sack towels, and often printed or embroidered with designs or patterns. Although you can use tea towels for dish towels, they&#;re less versatile, and often used as decoration. They are, I'll add, pretty great at drying glassware, due to their lack of lint. (The phrase &#;tea towel&#; has its origins in high society; these towels were used to insulate teapots and keep baskets of scones warm).
What are bar mops?
Bar mops are plush, terry cloth-style towels made with high-pile looped cotton. They&#;re thirsty and absorbent, making them ideal for mopping up spills on wet surfaces. But they become quickly saturated, which makes them far from ideal for use as pot holders. They also leave behind a lot of lint when used as a dish-drying towel.
What&#;s a side towel?
A side towel is restaurant lingo for a basic, low-cost dish towel that can be used for a variety of kitchen tasks. My top pick in this review, the Zeppoli Classic Kitchen Towels, is considered a side towel.
What&#;s the best way to wash dish towels?
Beyond &#;according to manufacturer instructions,&#; you mean? Jokes aside, dish towels should be washed in cold water and tumble-dried on the lowest heat setting to avoid shrinking. All cotton and linen towels will shrink up to four inches after the first wash/dry cycle, although if you&#;re concerned about that, you can hang-dry them to minimize surface area loss. If your kitchen towels get stained, treat them immediately with a stain remover and wash them on cold. If the stain remains, try treating and washing it again before putting it in the dryer; heat will &#;set&#; the stain. Most manufacturers note that if bleach is used, it should be the non-chlorine type.
Are kitchen towels and dish cloths the same?
Linguistically, yes. Although dish towels are often referred to as kitchen towels and vice-versa, there&#;s one instance where I wouldn&#;t swap them out. Terry cloth towels are best reserved for drying hands, because they leave behind lint when used for drying dishes (especially on glassware).
Which material is best for a dish towel?
Our tests revealed that cotton was preferable for dish towels, owing to its high absorbency rate, low cost, and flexibility. Linen is an excellent option as well, although it&#;s more expensive and prone to wrinkling and rumpling in the dryer. Although microfiber doesn&#;t leave behind lint, it&#;s not ideal for drying hands or swapping in as a pot holder.
Are Geometry dish towels good?
Geometry is a popular brand that makes, among other textiles, kitchen towels. We haven't tested them because, owing to their polyester fabric makeup, they're unable to be used with hot pots and pans.
Why We're the Experts
For more information, please visit Kitchen Textiles.