Photo-Illustration: The Strategist; Photos: Retailers
Unless you’ve worked in a professional kitchen — or perhaps fancy you could after binge-watching The Bear — you might be wondering what exactly a kitchen mat is. It’s not a baking mat, one of those handy Silpat mats that go on top of sheet pans when making cookies. Instead, it’s a cushiony, cloudlike mat that home cooks and professional chefs alike place in high-traffic areas in their kitchen to support their feet and backs while spending hours in front of the sink and stove. (Not to mention that it protects floors from ingredient stains.)
“Standing on a softer surface absorbs and cushions a lot of movement,” recipe developer and cookbook author Erin Jeanne McDowell says, so finding the right kitchen mat — with your desired dimensions, thickness, and overall look — can save your body from aches and pains. That’s why I interviewed a number of home cooks and bakers, cookbook authors, and recipe developers about the mats they use during their full-time days in the kitchen. These mats have withstood the trials and joys of cooking from home, notably hours in front of the stove, dogs with the zoomies, and children with food in their mouths. So whether you prefer a visually appealing mat or just need some extra foot and back support, here you’ll find the best kitchen mats to stand on, according to cooking and baking experts.
Material: PVC foam Thickness: 0.47 inches and 0.75 inches Size: 17.3 inches x 28 inches, 17.3 inches x 39 inches, 17.3 inches x 60 inches, 20 inches x 32 inches
Recipe developer and cookbook author Caroline Chambers never used a kitchen mat outside of test kitchens for her catering business. That is until she renovated her kitchen and swapped out her cushy LVP flooring for some unforgiving yet visually appealing Saltillo tiles. “At the end of the day of a big cooking day, even at the end of cooking dinner, I noticed that my lower back hurt, my knees would hurt, and I was like, What the fuck is happening?” she says. It was time for a kitchen mat.
Chambers purchased the KitchenClouds anti-fatigue mat, which fit her support needs but not the aesthetic of her newly renovated kitchen. So she paired it with this rug from Loloi that has anti-slip material on the bottom that keeps it from sliding around. “I can be in the kitchen for 12 hours straight and not sit down once on a really busy development day, and I don’t feel it in my joints or in my back anymore,” she says. And whenever there’s a spill (which is inevitable with three boys who cook with her all the time), she cleans it with a little bit of Folex carpet cleaner.
Material: solid vinyl top surface and foam sponge base Thickness: 0.5 inches or 0.75 inches Size: multiple
If you were to enter McDowell’s kitchen, you’d see four kitchen mats that cover almost her entire working space. They’re the fruit of a deep internet search for custom floor mats and can be ordered to suit your preferred thickness and square footage. If you’re like McDowell and are looking for a kitchen-mat set that’s unique to your kitchen, I’d say these are your best bet.
McDowell opted for the 0.75-inch thickness and says, “Even when I shoot videos and photography in my kitchen and I place heavy tripods or other equipment on the mats, those items leave an impression only temporarily. The mats always bounce back!” Not to mention they protect her feet, back, and hardwood floors. And as McDowell says, “A kitchen mat that moves under you is worthless in my opinion,” so these don’t budge unless she picks them up herself. They’ve seen extreme use — “I’m regularly in the kitchen for eight hours or more a day. I also have regular help in the kitchen, and other folks, photographers and videographers, regularly working on them, too,” she says — and the mats only ripped when a mover was bringing in her new fridge. She cleans them with a steam mop or disinfectant spray and then lets them dry in the sun.
Material: PVC material Thickness: 0.4 inches or 0.47 inches Size: 17.3 x 47 inches and 17.3 x 29 inches
Unlike the American Floor Mats option, this kitchen mat can’t be customized to the size of your kitchen. However, it’s the perfect size for culinary content creator Stephanie Rutherford’s space. She’s had two surgeries on her left foot, so even though this is one of thinnest and most affordable mats on the list, it still helps alleviate her pain from working in the kitchen for six to eight hours a day. The mats work so well in part because she’s placed them in the most trafficked parts of her space — along the island and in front of her mixer — and doesn’t move them around unless she’s cleaning the floors. And while they’ve lost a battle to some errant food dye, the mats are mostly stain free and can be cleaned with a wet paper towel. One thing to note: The mats wear down with time, so Rutherford ordered a brand new set after a few years of use.
Material: foam Thickness: 0.5 inches or 0.75 inches Size: 17 inches x 24 inches, 20 inches x 32 inches, 20 inches x 39 inches, 20 inches x 48 inches, 20 inches x 60 inches, 24 inches x 70 inches, 17 inches x 24 inches/17 inches x 48 inches, and 17 inches x 29 inches/17 inches x 59 inches
While a kitchen mat hasn’t made our list of best gifts for home cooks (yet!), recipe developer and culinary content creator Justine Doiron received hers as a gift from her fiancé. “He got it for me when I was just starting to really take cooking seriously, when we were living in Hoboken four years ago, because my feet and ankles were hurting,” she says. Unlike some of the other experts I interviewed, Doiron only has one kitchen mat, which she places under the sink to provide cushioning when she does dishes. However, you can also buy this kitchen mat in a set of two and place them in your most trafficked cooking areas, like Rutherford does. When Doiron isn’t standing at the sink, she’s wearing her “cooking grandma slippers,” which provide the same support as her kitchen mat. And while she and Chambers share the same unfavorable opinion about their kitchen mats’ appearances, Doiron puts hers in the closet when she has company over rather than topping it with a rug — “It’s a utility product, you know?” she says.
Material: foam Thickness: 0.75 inches Size: 20 inches x 32 inches, 20 inches x 48 inches, 20 inches x 72 inches, 30 inches x 72 inches, and 30 inches x 108 inches
If you’d like a kitchen mat that doesn’t sacrifice on appearance or support, consider fashion designer and culinary creator Peter Som’s kitchen mat of choice. He purchased two of them — one for the stove and one for the sink — in anticipation of long hours in the kitchen working on his upcoming cookbook. The mats have a textured, woven tweed look to them that he says gives them “a bit more of a home feel, whereas if you’re doing a solid color, that usually feels a bit more industrial.”
The mat wipes off easily and has maintained its antique white appearance, which is important for Som, who is admittedly “sort of a messy cook.” And if you’re worried about tripping, there’s no need to stress: “There’s a really nice bevel along the edge that’s gentle, and that’s really good for non-trippage,” Som says.
Material: High density foam with printed top fabric Thickness: 0.75 inches Size: 22 inches x 36 inches, 22 inches x 52 inches, 22 inches x 72 inches, and 30 inches x 108 inches
For another kitchen mat that challenges the industrial appearance norms, there’s recipe developer and food creator Christine Han’s mat, which she says is in perfect shape after about three years of use. She has two, which she stands on during her four to five hours in the kitchen on a daily basis and which she says “have stood the test of time.” She was looking for a kitchen mat that would both support her feet and catch food she dropped on the floor. She landed on the standing mats from House of Noa, which she describes as “supple” and are completely wipeable. “I cook with food coloring, I cook with kimchi, red-hot liquid that stains, and I’ve been able to get all of that out,” she says. Though the pattern she has is currently unavailable, House of Noa offers a variety of kitchen mats in different colors and patterns.
Material: engineered polyurethane material Thickness: 0.75 inches Size: 3 feet x 2 feet and 6 feet x 2 feet
If you’d like to emulate a professional kitchen in your home, I’d recommend considering chef and Strategist kitchen and dining editor Kiki Aranita’s mat. “Is it fashionable? No. Do my knees care about fashion? No,” she says. “It’s also so much better looking than those commercial kitchen mats with the big holes, so I don’t mind its appearance.” While the mat has one of the higher price tags on this list, Aranita says hers has held up for the past decade, so it’s an investment that should last years — “I clean it by wiping it down with all-purpose spray and a rag, and it’s still like new,” she says. Like Doiron, Aranita finds the mat is most useful for long stationary tasks. For her, that looks like breaking down large, complicated fish, and for her husband, it’s rolling out and shaping pasta for hours on end.
Material: polyester with a polyurethane water-resistant barrier Thickness: 6mm and 13mm Size: 2.5 feet x 7 feet, 2.5 feet x 10 feet, 2.5 feet x 12 feet
If you’re lucky enough to have a long kitchen like culinary-content creator and cookbook author Jon Kung, Ruggable’s runner rugs are one of your best bets. The mat comes in four variations, two of which are relevant to this article: Flatwoven Standard and Flatwoven Cushioned. Kung has the former because the cushioned version is not available in the dimensions that work for his kitchen — 2.5 feet by 12 feet — but he says the standard version “helps with your joints, your knees, your back, all of that stuff. Just a little extra padding in areas where you’re standing a lot is just very helpful.” However, the more padding the better, so I’d recommend purchasing the cushioned version if the dimensions work for your kitchen.
Unlike Chambers’s mat-rug combo, Kung’s mat has the benefit of the cushion part and the rug part attaching with Velcro — a level of convenience that’s reflected in the higher price tag. However, if it’s within your budget, the Ruggable is ideal because everything stays together until you want to throw the rug part in the washing machine after a big spill. And while Kung hasn’t put it in the washing machine yet (it’s hard to find a machine that will fit a 12-foot runner), he’s found that a vacuum and carpet cleaner work just fine. “I’ve got two very energetic pit bulls that have knocked things off of the counter and onto it before — I imagine that it’s almost like a child equivalent — so they’re pretty resilient, and I think they’re designed to be that way,” he says.
• Kiki Aranita, senior editor at the Strategist
• Caroline Chambers, recipe developer and cookbook author
• Justine Doiron, recipe developer, food stylist, and culinary-content creator
• Christine Han, recipe developer and culinary-content creator
• Jon Kung, culinary-content creator, recipe developer, and cookbook author
• Erin Jeanne McDowell, recipe developer and cookbook author
• Stephanie Rutherford, recipe developer, food photographer, and culinary-content creator
• Peter Som, fashion designer, culinary creator, and upcoming cookbook author
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