Restaurants — Kitchen Extract Cleaning in London

London restaurants cook long hours in crowded buildings. Many kitchens sit in a basement, and the duct can climb past offices, flats or hotel rooms before it reaches the roof. We arrange TR19 extract cleaning quotes for restaurants across London. An independent specialist provider carries out the work and issues the certificate.

Few places pack kitchens in so tightly. Westminster City Council says more than 5,000 food outlets, including restaurants, takeaways and pubs, are registered with it, and its Food Safety team inspects them regularly.

TR19 cleaning intervals for London restaurants

London Fire Brigade guidance uses BESA's TR19 Grease specification as the standard for post-clean checks. It ties the minimum interval to how long the kitchen cooks each day: 12 to 16 hours means a clean every three months, 6 to 12 hours every six months, and 2 to 6 hours every twelve months. Two services a day usually means six-monthly cleaning, while a kitchen cooking from breakfast to late evening is quarterly. The Brigade's guidance note GN86 notes that heavy frying and chargrilling produce much higher grease levels than baking or boiling, so a menu built around the grill may need extra cleans. The bands are laid out in our TR19 compliance guide.

Fire law, audits and insurance in London

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 makes the responsible person assess the risk of fire and act on it, and in London the Order is enforced by the London Fire Commissioner through London Fire Brigade. GN86 wants the kitchen extract assessed in detail in the fire risk assessment, sets annual cleaning as the minimum unless that assessment recommends otherwise, and says a fire safety officer carrying out an audit will ask to see post-clean verification records. The Brigade's Fire Investigation Team is blunt: “by far the most common problem and cause of ducting fires is the lack of proper cleaning and maintenance”. A poor regime, GN86 adds, could affect a later insurance claim.

Basement kitchens and tall duct runs

Brigade incident reports show how far a duct fire can travel. In July 2022 grease ignited in the ducting of a restaurant on Monument Street in the City and destroyed it from the basement to the fourth floor, with twelve fire engines and around 80 firefighters called. In May 2023 grease and cooking deposits caught light in a restaurant on Shoreditch High Street, destroying the kitchen ducting from the plant room to the roof of a six-storey building, and around 65 people left. In September 2024 a build up of grease destroyed the ducting of a restaurant and office building on New Road, Whitechapel, from ground floor to roof. GN86 explains the pattern: burning grease can spread fire rapidly along the ductwork and into the fabric and voids of the building.

What the clean includes

Every part of the system is covered: the canopy and its filters, each length of ductwork between canopy and discharge, and the extract fan. Where a stretch of duct has no way in, access panels are fitted. Grease thickness is measured at the start and the finish, and the specification caps grease at a mean of 200 microns between cleans. GN86 lists what the report should hold: the systems cleaned, pre and post clean measurements and photographs, recommendations, a certificate, and a sketch marking access panels, test points and anything left uncleaned, with the reason. TR19 kitchen extract cleaning sets out the full scope.

Booking around service and shared buildings

Most restaurants book the clean for after the last table leaves or before morning prep, so service is untouched. Tell us your quietest night and how the roof or plant room is reached. GN86 makes the owner or occupier responsible for arranging access where part of the duct sits in third party property, and where a landlord or managing agent looks after part of the run, everyone responsible should co-ordinate so the whole duct is cleaned at the same time. If nobody knows the route, begin with an inspection report.

Food hygiene inspections

Food hygiene is assessed by a different body. Local authorities run the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme in partnership with the Food Standards Agency, so in London a food safety officer from your borough council, or from the City of London Corporation in the Square Mile, inspects the kitchen. Display of the sticker is voluntary in England. The TR19 certificate covers fire risk and belongs with your fire risk assessment.

Restaurant groups and where we arrange quotes

For a group, one quote can cover every site, with a certificate for each kitchen and dates staggered so no two sites lose the same evening. Pricing factors are explained in the cost guide. We arrange quotes for restaurants in Soho, Covent Garden, Shoreditch, Islington, Canary Wharf, Brixton, Clapham, Peckham, Greenwich, Hammersmith and Ealing. Request a quote to get started.

Where we see these kitchens most

Services: TR19 extract cleaning · canopy cleaning · ductwork · filters · what it costs

Frequently Asked Questions