sorry, but personally, I'd block up the hatch. it is very dated.

It is!! But also very handy!!

I’m another one for blocking it up.

We have a similar serving hatch in our Victorian house and are sometimes teased or mocked about it. We don’t use it much as intended (eg transferring dining items), but it’s incredibly useful nevertheless for keeping an eye on the kids and feeling part of the dining/living room conversations while I’m in the kitchen. We’ve decided to keep it in our future kitchen renovation, but will be increasing the height so it’s a tall rectangular opening. Although I will lose the upper cupboard space in the kitchen, the new dimensions will make it appear more of an architectural feature, not to mention more practical for how we use ours.

For the doors, I’m considering trying something beyond the typical shaker-type solid wood door to make them a feature too. If I get the design right, stained glass insets would look amazing.

Personally I would have removed the wall and open up the kitchen to the dining room. I am not sure that your concerns about cooking smells and washing up are an issue these days especially in the advent of dishwashers and very efficient cooker hoods.

If it was mine I’d take down the whole wall and make a lovely big kitchen/dining/living area. I’m not keen on the hatch idea even when they were all the rage in some houses in the 70s, sorry :-)

We put doors in front of ours to match the kitchen. The dining room side has a large ornate picture frame around it.

Definitely remove or change the whole wall. On it's own, it's not a feature and in my opinion mars the placement of furniture on the other side.

It’s retro not dated! Good for you for being unique - great suggestion re the window with shutters, or how about an ornate picture frame surround?

I think you've already installed a wonderful new kitchen, so you have to work with the hatch as it is or make it a little bit larger?

How about this: a floor to ceiling sliding door, with a bookcase built around the hatch and a sliding door that you can slide either in front of a bookcase or in front of the hatch part. Think of the TV as the hatch.

To me it feels a bit odd to make a kind of breakfast bar in front of such a small opening.

Sorry, I am with the others on this. It feels very dated and, personally, I would block it.
The main reason is that it makes the wall on the dinning side unusable for being properly decorated. You can’t really put nice pictures or furniture because of it. Unless you would want to make it a proper feature (eg larger) or even take the wall completely, it would be an issue for me to keep it.

We have a hatch with doors which I wouldn't get rid of for anything. On the kitchen side it is between base units and wall units, on the dining-room side it happens to be over a radiator, we put a shelf over that so there is a small area to put stuff when "passing through". If it was possible to move the rad, I would have a console table there instead.
It will definitely be staying when we have the kitchen re-fitted next month.

I have just purchased a flat hat has been refurbished by the previous owners. It has a hatch and it's been updated to include a small breakfast bar. I bought some stools and they are handy when you have friends around for dinner and the can talk to you while preparing the food. Personally I would prefer to have the wall knocked through making a larger breakfast bar and opening up the kitchen into the diner but I am not about to change it anytime now.

When turning it into a breakfast bar at counterheight, you'd be looking at the wall. Too bad you've placed a brand new kitchen around it, as I would have opened it up a bit.

Look at this photo. Very interesting solution. Elongated narrow window. And a very effective wall decoration. The main thing here is to change the emphasis. You look at a beautiful wall and do not immediately notice a narrow window. And at the same time, the functionality remains. This picture Taylor Swift’s Former West Village Carriage House, you can find them in Google.

Black shiney brick tiles with..? Oh.. Uhm.. To each their own, I guess.. (it hurts! my eyes!)

))))) To each his own. You're right. But I talked about the size of the window between the guest room and the kitchen. And also about how to change the emphasis of attention using the color of the wall. Not necessarily black. )))

Nothing wrong with black tiles. Just know where and when to use them ;) (your explanation was clear though)

If you have small children... this is perfect for a hatch ... have fun !

As I cook a lot at home, and mostly every th from scratch

I cook a lot at home, most of the time from the scratch, using so many spices and chilies, I can totally understand the importance of hutch. It might be 'dated' for some as opposed to an open kitchen, but it still is a very practical feature. I wonder though if it can be enlarged a bit more. You can add shutters to close it when not required.

I love the serving hatch, was looking for ideas myself as we have one in our caravan that use to be a window. Let me know what you did with it. But i would keep it for sure, you could just have a wall table, kind of that is like a ledge to pass the plates, food, dishes out on to, good luck

We had a serving hatch that we have opened up so we can use as a small breakfast bar - we didn’t want open plan as our dogs sleep in the kitchen if we have guests over. We also want the option to close it (if I get up in the night for a

drink, the kitchen light wakes our parrot up!!). we want to avoid Louvre doors but can’t find a blind that seems small enough. Any ideas?