New Yorkers are all too familiar with cramped kitchens, but Justin Spring can truly be called an expert. He grew up spending weekends in a real galley kitchen – one located on a sailboat on the Gulf Coast. Now, he’s written “The Itty Bitty Kitchen Handbook” (Broadway, $12.95), a smart, savvy guide to cooking under Lilliputian circumstances.

Many New York chefs are in the same boat, so to speak. Professional kitchens need to turn out consistent, often complex dishes with precision timing. It’s hard enough to cook up beef stroganoff in a tiny kitchen – imagine having to whip up strawberry sorbet with yogurt panna cotta and balsamico agar-agar. Occasionally, chefs make do in spaces that weren’t even built for human occupancy. Heather Carlucci-Rodriguez’s little Indian nook, Lassi, occupies a West Village space that was formerly a passageway for carriage horses. “My entire place is six feet wide. The kitchen’s okay – unless you have people in it,” she said.

Chefs do have a major advantage over the home cook: They know how to organize, prep, and clean. And those qualities are doubly essential in a small kitchen. Gabrielle Hamilton, chef and owner of Prune, makes do in a kitchen that’s less than 200 square feet. “I’m just an organized person. It’s like packing a van or living in a small apartment. Everything has a home, and it’s in reach of where it needs to be,” she said.

Ingenuity is also essential. Ms. Carlucci-Rodriguez resorts to boat supplies to outfit her kitchen. “A lot of stuff that we bought for the kitchen was for boats – shelving and dish racks and cleaning tools. We clean the kitchen floor with a deck scrubber since it gets into the nooks and crannies,” she said.

Cleanliness is next to godliness, especially in a tiny kitchen. But chefs rely on cleanliness for more than just sanitation.Tiny kitchens are often exposed to the diner’s gaze, and keeping the kitchen neat can transform it into the primary decorative element in the space. Chika Tillman, chef at the all-dessert nook ChikaLicious, prides herself on the neatness of her 100-square-foot kitchen. “Our decor is pure white, and then the challenge is keeping it white and clean.That way, the color in the restaurant is the dessert, so people focus on that,” Ms. Tillman said.

You might think that a tiny kitchen means a tiny menu, but that’s not always the case.

Lassi offers a compact menu that fits its small space. “Because we don’t have a lot of storage for food, we have a small menu and we are guaranteed to make everything as fresh as possible,” Ms. Carlucci-Rodriguez said. “We only have a couple staples on the menu. The rest we change as we run out of certain ingredients during the day.”

Chef Maxime Bilet describes his kitchen at Jack’s Luxury Oyster Bar as “probably one of the smallest in New York,” but serves tasting menus to about half his guests. He manages by adjusting his cooking style to the space: “Because you have so many ideas, you have to make the right decisions about essentializing the dish.Take away the unnecessary stuff.” At Prune, Ms. Hamilton said, “Our size hasn’t determined the menu. We have a ridiculously large menu for such a small kitchen. The only glitch is where I rely too much on one station. You can’t have everything on the menu grilled.”

There are unexpected benefits to the tiny space situation, too.

Working in a small space means no room for the hotheaded chef routine. Instead, a cool, calm head is a valued trait. “Everyone is very careful with each other. Everyone needs to be very welltempered,” Ms. Carlucci-Rodriguez said.

Small spaces also give chefs a sense of control. “The pace works well with the space. You just know what you can do,” Mr. Bilet said. And in a tiny space, an eagle-eyed chef can notice mistakes quickly and make adjustments. “I have total control over the food. You see how the cooks are working, what they throw away. And I see every piece of food that goes out the door,” Ms. Hamilton said.

A smaller restaurant also means fewer covers – and less money. So would Prune ever consider expanding to a bigger space? Ms. Hamilton isn’t in a hurry. “I’m running a nonprofit restaurant. The money – I don’t care, it’s never been the point for me,” she said.

Chefs rightly hesitate to mess with the small, but perfect, places they’ve created. Small kitchens usually equal small dining rooms, and for the lucky few who fit, it’s an intimate experience. “It’s perfect the way it is. I like that it’s crowded and packed and people pile in, and you grab the wrong glass of wine when you reach for your drink.”

So celebrate your tiny kitchen, even with its awkward layout, diminutive Magic Chef stove, and lack of cabinets. Just think of it as an exclusive little restaurant you need to helm skillfully. Stripped down and tiny can be beautiful, too – as long as you’ve got the right strategy.