When it comes to the kitchen's cleanup station, the depth of the bowl may be more important than the number of bowls.

"Home sinks are designed for a lot of storage underneath rather than for a usable sink," argues Chef Duncan Firth. "If you're washing anything oversized, a roasting pan or a pasta pot, you don't want to get your feet wet. If you need to clean a whole fish, you want to put it in a deep sink so the scales don't fly."

However, when you don't have a dishwasher — as in the case of Chef Michael Daniels — a second bowl comes in handy. "I like two areas," he says, "One to wash in and one you can drain or rinse."

Designer Clare Donohue recommends an easy-to-clean stainless steel undermount sink, with a bottom liner to reduce noise.

A pull-down faucet comes in handy for rinsing food and for "hosing down" the mess after a meal.

Of course, a good sink requires a good faucet as companion, and our chefs voted for a pulldown faucet as the best option; not so much for rinsing fruits and veggies but for keeping the kitchen clean. Why so much emphasis on cleanliness? In a commercial kitchen, few sins are worse than giving the diners food poisoning. "At the end of the night, we spray it all down with soap and squeegee it off," explains Firth. "We have floor drains."