After stumbling upon the hole in the wall that is Switchboard Cafe, customers typically greet the baristas with the same opening line: “I hope you’re not claustrophobic”.

Switchboard’s Joe Sayers says it’s a remark he must have heard every day in his three years at the cafe.

It’s a fair comment, though; in Switchboard’s tiny kitchen there is standing room only for the cafe’s three staff.

The trio deftly dance around each other, cleaning, preparing or serving, seemingly in an unspoken harmony. “I hope you three get along” is another common line of dialogue, Sayers says.

The kitchen sits in a secluded nook of Manchester Unity Arcade, in an under-the-stairs sliver that once housed the switchboard operator in charge of the building’s outgoing and incoming telephone calls.

The same room now serves coffee, tea, sandwiches and breakfast treats.

Room is obviously allocated for coffee-making essentials, but what’s more surprising is the real-estate that’s given to the slow cooker, something Sayers says is essential for steamy winter soups.

Here, space-saving measures such as neat rows of shelving don’t just help staff organise the cafe, they help decorate it. Special mention goes to the stools made from old W-class tram seats – which match the vintage of the arcade itself.

COLONIAL TRAMCAR RESTAURANT: Visit tramrestaurant.com.au

On board the Colonial Tramcar Restaurant the dining car is palatial. The tram’s curved roof sparkles gold, the seats are velvet-backed and the woodwork finely detailed. It’s the Orient Express with a distinctly Melbourne twist.

But peel back the curtain to the on-board kitchen and a much more modern space is revealed. Not a millimetre has been wasted – there is a large oven, a cart of tightly packed crockery and a neat, double-tiered platform for plating up items from the a la carte menu.

The gleaming food preparation area resembles a jet’s kitchen, but that doesn’t mean aeroplane food is served. Instead you’ll find Victorian-farmed eye fillet, cooked to preference and served with potato and herb rosti, seasonal vegetables, onion marmalade and beef jus.

Executive chef Stephen Shadbolt co-ordinates the meals for the fleet of three restaurant trams and preps dishes from a Southbank kitchen – a kind of mission control.

It is then up to each tram’s on-board chef to cook and plate up the meals; four courses at lunchtime and up to five for dinner.

The system has been finely tuned over almost 30 years, and Tramcar typically serves 216 meals a night. “You have to be organised,” explains Shadbolt. “Everything has to be on board and right, because once the tram’s gone that’s it.”

GUMBO: Visit gumbokitchen.com

Bringing a ‘‘N’awlins-style’’ street parade to Melbourne meant squeezing a kitchen – and a shot of Louisiana culture – onto the back of a Mercedes-Benz sprinter.

Gumbo Kitchen now rolls down our streets, finds a park, broadcasts bouncy New Orleans brass and distributes picnic blankets and Po’boys – gigantic bread rolls overflowing with salad and deep fried shrimp.

Gumbo Kitchen’s kitchen, considering its wheeled placement, is surprisingly spacious. Plenty of room is devoted to sink space for cleaning sizeable gumbo pots, and to fridge room – for storing the fresh seafood essential for real-deal New Orleans dishes.

Gumbo Kitchen’s Michael Cotter doesn’t see the kitchen’s size as a major drawback.

Cotter, who has a background working in cocktail bars, drew on the idea that bartenders have their own space and work their own fully-stocked station to prevent staff stepping on each other’s feet. He brought that philosophy to Gumbo Kitchen; the four staff (maximum) know their stuff and work in tandem.

It was the fiery drink sazerac that helped ignite Cotter’s love of ‘‘N’awlins cultcha’’, and inspired him to bring cuisine like spicy seafood gumbo and zesty lemon ice box pie to Melbourne.

“Their culture of celebration is all about sharing – food especially, music especially, it is all about having fun,” he says.

SENOR BBQ: Visit argentineanbbq.com

Senor BBQ isn’t confined to one small kitchen. In fact Hernan Palacio, Senor BBQ himself, has many small kitchens – from his basic one-drum portable barbecue for small gatherings to his festival food rig.

Palacio’s home base – which is still on the pequeña side – sits behind St Kilda’s Pure Pop Records on Barkly Street. Argentinean-style barbecued meats are served through a portal in the wall, and on Wednesdays the wait staff pick up instruments and perform Latino tunes.

Hernan says the size of the barbecue doesn’t matter – the fundamentals remain the same. What’s integral to his food is real wood charcoal that burns slow, the cut and quality of the meat and chimichurri – a herb and spice-laden sauce that’s applied liberally to the barbecued meat.

“The food is real, it’s unique, we just serve it up as is – no pretension,” Palacio says.

He has been barbecuing at events for five years, and as Senor BBQ for more than a year. He has learned to keep the menu short to perfect the dishes on offer.

“I’m a firm believer that less is more – I give you a lot of food, but it’s either chicken, beef or chorizo,” he says. Salad is also on offer and so, of course, is chimichurri.