Small kitchens are treated as an obstacle to cooking, and they are not. A single pan, two rings and a chopping board the size of a book cover almost everything most people eat. What a small kitchen actually forbids is working in parallel — and that changes the order you do things, not what you can make.
Cook in sequence and use the pan as storage
With one hob you cannot run three things at once, so run them one after another and let each wait. Brown the onions, tip them onto a plate, cook the rest, put them back at the end. This is exactly how a restaurant line works, and it is faster than it sounds. Ten minutes of sequence beats twenty minutes of trying to juggle.
A frying pan with a lid replaces an oven
Roasting is dry heat, and a covered pan on low heat does most of what an oven does: it cooks chicken thighs through, softens root vegetables, bakes a flatbread, even does a frittata if you finish it covered. For the browning an oven gives, take the lid off for the last few minutes and turn the heat up. Lid on to cook, lid off to colour, is most of oven cooking translated to a hob.
Clear as you go, because there is nowhere to put anything
In a small kitchen, tidying is not a virtue but a requirement: the counter is the only workspace, so it has to be emptied between stages. Wash the board while the onions soften. A chopping board over the sink or across two counter edges buys you another surface for the cost of nothing, and a tray to gather prepared ingredients stops them occupying the whole worktop.
What to buy instead of an oven
One deep, heavy frying pan with a lid does more than any appliance. After that, a small electric oven or air fryer if there is a plug and a shelf — they roast, reheat and crisp, which is exactly what a hob does worst. A kettle is worth using more than most people do: boiling water in a kettle and pouring it over pasta or vegetables saves a ring and several minutes.
Choose dishes with fewer components
One-pan dinners, pasta, rice dishes, soups, stews, eggs, anything where the parts cook together. Elaborate meals with three separate hot components are a kitchen problem before they are a cooking problem. That is not a restriction. Most of the best home cooking in the world comes out of kitchens smaller than the one you are apologising for.
Work in sequence, use a heavy pan with a lid as your oven, clear the board between stages and cook things whose parts belong together. A small kitchen changes the choreography and almost nothing else.