What do you cook on your stovetop? The wider hood will provide better ventilation If you do a lot of stove top sauté or frying, etc

I would get the 36 in hood -- at least 3 inches wider than the stove on either side is ideal

You could do a more dramatic hood with nothing each side,

or do shelves each side.

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I will speak blasphemy: In a configuration where the cabinets are adjacent (ie, abutting) the hood, you don't need a wider hood. The cabinets act like a 'chimney', preventing the spread of the effluent to the sides.

So pick whichever you like.

I have a 15" cabinet stack on the end of a run. We keep snacks in the upper cabinet--crackers, chips, etc., and it's fine. You'll probably be keeping oils and seasonings in those cabs, so 15" will work for you, too.

I would go wider hood, narrower cabinets. For me the uppers flanking the range are for tall bottled things like oils, vinegars, soy and fish sauces, etc that I may need when actively cooking. Losing 1.5" per cab isn't going going to kill me there—I can always store a less-used bottle or two in the pantry if need be—but if the ventilation isn't up to snuff, that's some serious outlay to remedy.

There’s only 2 of us so we don’t need a larger range... For what entertaining we do 30” is plenty. With infinite funds maybe we’d do otherwise but this is a build in the Bay Area of Calif so even a reasonable budget doesn’t go far (to put it mildly :->).

Guess I should have qualified my statement about having enough storage elsewhere.... I do want some storage by the range for things I need and use for cooking. Not a fan of open shelving, especially by the range and for the type of things I’d want to keep there.

Good to know that 15” are not a complete waste... It didn’t seem like they should be but just wanted to hear from other experiences.

My younger dd just finished a mid range remodel and her wall looks almost exactly like yours right down to the 30” range and flanking side cabinets. i advised her to go for the 36” hood.

If you have to have the cabinets there for storage, pick a different type of hood. A pro style under cabinet hood works well and doesn’t look so disconnected.Having the cabinet across the top bridges it and turns it into a single mass, which works better visually. The cabinets all need to go to the ceiling as well.

Cabinets abutted to the hood sides do provide a measure of side skirt function to a hood. However, this mainly applies to the rear burners' plume capture; the improvement in capture for the front burners will be marginal. I would go wider on the hood and abut cabinets as in the image above.

I'm less sure about the suggestion of going to the ceiling; the ceiling is about 9-feet high. To use any space there will require for most a stool or stepladder.

We considered and ruled out going to the ceiling with the cabinets early on and decided it wasn’t worth the extra cost to go to 9’ for space that we don’t need and that isn’t as easily accessible.

Thanks for the input everyone. Definitely helpful!

I have a 12” cabinet on one side of my range and I make it work. I don’t need 50 oils, vinegars, and sauces at my fingertips every day.

Go bigger hood... I have 15" cabinets by my stove - excellent for oil, vinegar, boxes of pasta, canned goods, tea, honey, sugar, etc...

IMO a 30” hood is fine but I would not do the cabinets on either side at all and IMO oils and vinegars do not belong up above a range or cooktop . I think in your drwaing that space looks good with no uppers at all.