You definitely don’t want to be reaching things behind a cooktop that you are using! not to mention that will be a splatter zone. even to side of cooktop it would be hard to reach much of anything if you are not quite tall. and not so great ergonomically either. i would rethink this plan.

yeah ok thank you both! thats what my common sense was telling me, but I was hoping there was a counter argument.

Are you thinking about having upper cabinets and a hood or not?

I would not want to reach over the stove, but I wouldn't hesitate to do built in appliance garages on either side of the stove.

Run the countertop back into the space and have doors that double as your backsplash.

No sense letting 12" deep spaces go to waste.

If that is the fridge against that wall I would have an indent in the wall created for the fridge so you can get a regular depth fridge and not have it stick out too far. Counter depth are more expensive and have less space.

All the reasons not to that have been stated. To include, the long reach makes it impractical. Upper cabinets usually overhang counters by 12-16''. Recessing them into a wall doubles the 'reach' for items in the cabinets.

Try standing 12'' away from your base cabinets and reaching into normal wall hung cabinets--that will approximate the feel of having recessed in the wall upper cabinets. The bottom shelf may not be too bad but the second & higher shelves are going to be unreachable (unless you play in the NBA.)

You could do it to each side and not behind the cooktop. I would not do it directly behind the cooktop. Reach will be extended.

My upper cabinets on the range wall are partially recessed (4") but also slightly shallower than typical upper cabinets. This is because of an adjacent window. Both the partial recess and the shallow depth seem like bad ideas on paper, but it works in this case, probably because they have less depth--there is less added reach. They do not fit a dinner plate, but they are pretty efficient storage for anything else, much like a Subzero refrigerator won't store a pizza box or a large sheet pan, but also prevents smaller things from getting buried in the back.

The other thing is that it means upper cabinets are less in your face because there is more counter in front of them. There are trade-offs with any design decision.

You answered your own question. Unless you have long arms, the reach is too much.

Doing 12" deep recessed cabinets on either side of the range gives you an added potential functional upgrade. You can recess that storage with or without doors down to the countertop. I use cardboard appliance box material to do a full-sized mockup to see if the idea can be configured to work for you. It could be a major appliance garage behind tambour doors area work zone.. Pretty exciting at counter level.

Thank you everyone for all your insights! I like the idea of a hidden compartment tucked into the wall. But maybe not behind the cooktop!