It cannot operate if the doors are inside the recess. You are really wanting a built in, not a free standing, and not a counter depth.

thanks Minardi. Do you have a good example?

Aren't fridge panels a tad to shallow? Your counter sticks beyond fridge panels.

Seems like yes they are, I just went with the designer recommendation and what he said was “standard “

that was an error on my profile, I just corrected it. I'm not a PRO

The panels surrounding your refrigerator are too shallow, they should cover the walls of the refrigerator box with the doors sticking out past the panels. See example below.

Did your designer have the specs for your refrigerator b/f ordering cabinets? He should have. Regardless, I would think any designer would know that it's likely the refrigerator box would stick out a bit further and should have ordered the panels deeper to then be cut down to fit. Of course, if you didn't have the refrigerator prior to install, the installer wouldn't know how deep the panel needed to be.

Is your refrigerator supposed to be "counter-depth"? I couldn't find any installation or other documentation for it in the link you provided (admittedly, I did not search exhaustively). The description does not say it's "counter-depth" and the specs you posted show the box to be 27"D instead of around 24" or 25", so I do not think it's counter-depth. Maybe if you get a refrigerator that's counter-depth less of the box will show?

Note: Counter-depth refrigerators are a total depth of 30" to 32" when including doors & handles. It's the refrigerator boxes/carcasses that are "counter-depth".

Note that the panels surrounding the refrigerator are deeper than the cabinets and even a bit deeper than the counter.

Your other problem is that you do not have a "standard" width refrigerator. Yes, 30" is not unheard of, but for counter-depth, standard today is 36". On AJ Madison, notice the difference in the # of 36"W counter-depth vs all other refrigerator widths:

It doesn't matter whether or not the designer had the specs for the refrigerator. The panels should always be deeper than the adjacent counter so the counter can die into it. Even if you did manage to find a shallower refrigerator, you would still make the panels deeper than the counter and just not push the refrigerator all the way back. This was a major flub from your "designer".

Note that you can fix it by replacing the panels, but you can use the same cabinet.

Sounds good, change the panels should be the way to go. I agree the biggest constraint is the width of the fridge that made the fridge selection difficult

changing two panels shouldn’t be too costly right?

The refrigerator is not installed correctly. According to the installation guide, you were supposed to provide 100mm (~4") on each side plus 100mm at the rear. You cannot make the cabinet any deeper than 805mm (705mm for the appliance plus 100mm at the rear) or ~32". Any deeper and either the minimum rear clearance would not be achieved or you would not be able to open the doors. You cannot make the doors flush with the side panels. IMO you also would need to move the upper cabinet forward as it would look silly if it were recessed behind the panels on either side.

This appears to be a rebranded Midea MRF18B4AST.

When dealing with a basic stock cabinet line, you often don't get the option for deeper refrigerator panels. Some lines don't even have side panels for fridges. You have to move up to a better line, with more options. That panel is 24", the same as the cabinet boxes. It would work fine for a true built in. Yes, it's a far better design to have it deep enough for the counter to die into it. That isn't a "mistake" though, to not have it. It's just a common lower budget option.