Thanks, but no kitchen designer here, only DIY.

No issue here with wire limitation, we already have spotlights than use more W than the one we are replacing them with.

I'll check the footcandle tough, thanks.

For now my issue is more with finding a pattern that have the most symetrie possible, which is really hard rn.

You are a long way from a lighting plsn. The layout is terrible. Start over with that first.

Everything is installed. It's renovation from previous kitchen with the space we had without loosing too much cabinets, and with the limitation of bearing wall around the fridge.

Is there going to be a centre light or under cabinet lighting as well as recessed? We added a few pot lights to our kitchen. I researched a bit about locating them and the one thing that someone said is that you should place them based on need not on a design grid. We placed them so that the light hit the counter in front of our bodies instead of casting a shadow. Someone on Houzz said after it is done you don't notice if they are not lined up, it sort of fades into the background. We just put them where it made sense to us because it worked for us we are no lighting experts. If that is if any use to you.

IMO symmetry is not a useful goal. Good task and ambient lighting is the goal, and that is often in direct conflict with any kind of symmetry. They are recessed lights. No one is looking at them. You will only notice whether the work areas are well-lit or poorly lit.

Lights should be about 24" out from the wall, so they are centered over the countertop edge. Exception is the sink, where you want a recessed light centered over the center of the sink. And the fridge, where the light should be 12" further out from the wall than the front of the fridge. Space according to the beam light angle of the fixture/bulb you are using. And use under-cabinet lights as well.

I'm not a lighting expert, but when we were remodeling a kitchen our designer said that a good rule of thumb for general recessed lighting is to divide the ceiling height by 2, and the result is the amount of space to leave between each light. BUT, it's not so easy in your case, because proper placement in a kitchen requires you to pay attention to task-oriented lighting. Plan to add downlighting/task lighting under upper cabinets to provide light and avoid shadows for people working at the countertops. And, place canned lights so the light pools outside of the edge of counters where a person would normally stand (12"-18" from cabinets).

Your table and peninsula are quite close to each other, so carefully select the peninsula fixtures and table chandelier so that they complement rather than compete.

I found the most useful lighting for me is under the counters and over the cooktop (does your exhaust fan have downlights?) and over the sink. The house I bought had a lot of recessed ceiling light in the kitchen and I kept them, but honestly, one central light would have been just fine. I switched all the bulbs to integrated LED so I wouldn’t need to get on a ladder to change them, but I am a bit sorry I did it because I do get flickering occasionally I think LED lighting is overrated.

I think in a kitchen it is generally true that where your ceiling lights go just doesn’t attract attention. But I wish I had more closely supervised my decorator about other recessed lights in other rooms, because now I am locked into some furniture layouts because of her bad decisionmaking. Mentioning this because you might want to stick to non-recessed fixtures and the minumum you need to not be wishing you had more light where you need to work.

Thanks for the advices :)

Having a lot of people reinforcing the idea that symmetry is not a must have reassured us with the ”weird” spacing between the spots ;)

we chose white recessed light on a white ceiling so that should be discreet anyway ;)