Outdoor kitchen tiles.

The brief is harder than you think. An outdoor kitchen combines pressures most tile spaces never see at once: radiant heat from a BBQ or wood-fired pizza oven, grease splatter on horizontal and vertical surfaces, rain and UV soaking the same area, and barefoot traffic most evenings.

R12 at the cooking zone. R11 is the alfresco baseline, but an outdoor kitchen wants R12 wet pendulum at the cooking zone — particularly where the floor is near a drainage point or where grease drip is likely. R11 is fine a few metres away from the cookline.

Mid-tone to dark wins on the floor. Pale limestone-look reads beautifully in showrooms and shows every drip from the first BBQ. Charcoal, dark stone-look and mid-tone travertine hide cooking grime far better and stay presentable between cleans.

Continuity makes the space read as designed. Matching the outdoor kitchen floor to the alfresco floor — and ideally to the pool surround — turns three zones into one resolved outdoor room. A visible material change between the cook area and the alfresco fragments the space.

Order with extra wastage. An outdoor kitchen has more cuts than a standard alfresco floor — the BBQ structure, sink cutout, pizza oven base, gas and plumbing penetrations. Add 15% wastage, and order benchtop slabs and splashback from the same batch to keep tone consistent.

Silicone, not grout, at joints near the BBQ. Thermal movement at a working BBQ is significant. Cement grout at the BBQ base and all penetrations will crack in the first hot summer — silicone moves with the structure. Get a quote →