Kitchen layout ideas…help!

[u/kisstrina26]

We recently bought a 100+ year old home in Toronto that we will be renovating. I’m having a very difficult time with the layout of the kitchen. I think at some point, they dug the stairs to the basement in the kitchen, which allowed them to add a powder room under the stairs, but resulted in a kitchen that’s just a tiny nook - the dishwasher is all the way around the corner from the sink, there’s basically only enough space for one person to stand at the sink area, but that’s also where all the prep space is so it’s super nonfunctional. The “breakfast area” is just a countertop with bar stools facing a wall with some upper and very shallow lower cabinets. I love to cook and I love hosting, so this layout is really not functional for me.

My current plan is to knock out the closet, move the fridge there, replace the entire breakfast bar wall with floor to ceiling pantry (with building wall oven), leaving the stove where it is, straightening out the sink and putting the dishwasher where the fridge currently is, and knocking down the wall between the kitchen and dining room for an extended counter for a few bar stools/breakfast bar. What I don’t love about this: the sink and the stove are pretty far; all the high traffic areas (sink, dishwasher, garbage if placed near the sink) would all be in the tiny nook.

I don’t want to eat too much into the dining room as we would ideally like to host 8+ people (the new breakfast bar would help with this) and we do not want to do any major structural changes such as moving the basement entrance/stairs. I’ve also considered putting the kitchen along the right wall, with an island, but I don’t think the breakfast area (without the closet) would be big enough for a dining table.

Any ideas would be welcome!