I have never had a kitchen without a soffit. Well, until we recently bought a second home. I hate that there is that space above the cabinets. I see that the trend is to have small cabinets all of the way to the ceiling. Personally, I do not want to grab a ladder to access cabinets.

It appears that all of the current kitchens have removed the soffits. It is part of the trend to make every kitchen look alike...white cabinets, white quartz, stainless appliances, dark wood floors....etc. If you prefer the soffits, get them. They look nice...and no ladders needed!

how tall are your ceilings? putting in taller cabinets makes sense.

With stock cabinetry (rather than custom), cabinets that go to the ceiling are many times created with a "cabinet soffit" which is a board painted and finished to match the cabinetry. The board is attached to the top of the cabinets and the crown molding is attached to the board. This way you get the look, but you don't have a framed/sheetrock soffit to limit what is done in the future. I don't think this creates an out of style kitchen and leaves you with future flexibility. You don't say how high your ceilings are so I am not sure if this is possible. Note that in remodel, ceilings are seldom level and a standard remodel construction agreement would not include leveling all the ceilings and floors. This can cause gaps at the ceiling with the crown molding so you either need to keep them a bit off the ceiling or deal with the unevenness.

Example of cabinet soffit.

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i do have an uneven ceiling, we chose to leave a 6" gap for that reason, also a plumbing chase was in the way in one area.

Thanks. The ceiling is about 8.5 ft high and appears to be fairly level.

At 8.5' you can just use a small riser and attach the crown molding and be at the ceiling. It would look great.

Thanks Deborah and Nicole. I like the idea of a small riser but then I'm still left with trying to find a solution to the venting issue - I wanted to be able to have the kitchen stove vent outside, rather than go with a charcoal filter, which still keeps the air from the cooking inside. That's how the idea of a bulkhead came up - to channel the air/ducting through it! Maybe I should give up that idea??

Can you not get the ventilation out by going up into the ceiling joists and run it out? That is what we would typically do, unless the joists run in the wrong direction.