Time was when guests were kept out of the hotel kitchen with a rhyme: ‘No admission without permission’. Now an open kitchen or two, and sometimes even three are considered amongst the main attractions of the property.
Some hotels call it the exhibition kitchen, while others refer to it as the show kitchen. Yet others refer to it as the display kitchen.
“The biggest thing a show kitchen does is that lets people see that the food is fresh. Then, guests see professionals at work which they would not usually see,” says Rohit Gambhir, executive chef Trident Bandra Kurla Mumbai. At Trident Bandra Kurla in Mumbai, a show kitchen at 022 simply means that the chefs go about their business.
The levels of interactivity vary depending on how open the kitchen is and what is on the menu. Chefs at Girls at the Grill in ITC’s Maratha in Mumbai bring the Volcanic Rock at 300 degrees Celsius on the table so guests can cook meat to personalised perfection.
At Tasty Tangles in Mumbai, as in Peshawari at the ITC Maratha, the show kitchen is partitioned off by a glass so guests only see, not smell. At GRT Grand Chennai’s Mediterranean restaurant, Azulia, executive Mediterranean chef Ethem Aydemir puts up a great show flaming ingredients and chatting with the guests, clearly a star.
In a show kitchen, the first thing on show is the chefs. Hotels and restaurants hire multi-skilled, pleasant, educated staff and train them to brand specs before letting them interact with the guests. “The success of the restaurant is related to how the chef deals with the guests. We can teach skills later,” says Rajdeep Kapoor executive chef at ITC Maratha.
The all-girls team seasons the soups, previously prepared. They interact with the guests aiming to cook the meat or seafood exactly how the guest wants.
“We only hire educated staff. Everyone is expected to know some basic things. A uniform does not excuse you,” Chef Gambhir says.
Equipment often becomes a part of the décor rather than remaining functional. If you are really counting pennies, they are better spent on a new duck drier than
pretty panelling. Not only showcasing the chefs skill with throwing eggs in the air, open kitchens also encourage the use of dramatic appliances such as a big rice steamer, a Rotisol or a duck oven.
Chef Paul Kinny of Intercontinental Marine Drive says that designers are now creating multifunctional and smarter equipment. “For instance, refrigerators are not vertical and you can use the top as a table or as a working platform. The combination oven has replaced a steamer and an oven. Space saving equipment means operations are easier. Technologies are becoming multifunctional. Equipment is more compact, made to order, sometimes matched to the interiors. An oven may be clad to look like it is part of the wooden panels in the restaurant so it looks less industrial. An open kitchen is not about just breaking a wall.”
Space is at a premium and equipment makers need to work with that. For the hotel adding a show kitchen means giving up revenue which two additional tables would have brought in.
The look one strives for is clean and polished, unless, of course, the idea is to serve rustic food from the heart of North West Frontier as in the case of ITC’s Peshawari. In that case, brass utensils and coal fired tandoors would be the norm. Most of the equipment in an open kitchen is imported.
At Tasty Tangles, a franchise of Dubai-based Jumeirah Restaurants, Chef Aloysius Dsilva, says it is all stainless steel. “We follow certain brand standards – everything is made with stainless steel because it stays clean, it does not hold bacteria once cleaned and sanitised.”
For the staff working in a show kitchen is the culmination of all the training that is drilled into them. Kitchen staff needs to be organised, neat and work together as a team at all times. Wastage is to the minimum – whether of time, ingredients or people.
“You don’t have to pack it with too many people. They need to multi-task. I want the right people, not too many people. In the kitchen each station has a person. I have worked with 60 people on my team and I now work with 8,” says Chef Aydemir.
At ITC Maratha’s Pan Asian restaurant the show kitchen is the hub of different cuisines – Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Mongolian, barbecue and a separate counter for Teppanyaki. Chef Kapoor says, “We have four expat chefs – Chinese, Thai, Japanese and fourth one is for Dimsums. In the earlier days there would be one man whose job was only to cut vegetables. It would take five years to move to the next step. Now the chef does it himself. He knows what cuts he wants.”
In most hotels, preparations such as washing kitchenware, cutting vegetables and raw meat are done away from the guests’ eye. The chef gets to choose what to show. In a few cases the show kitchen is also the base kitchen, though even in the most Spartan kitchens, the butchery and dishwashing are kept out of sight.
“Messy work should be done in backend kitchens. A lot of functions are still handled at the base kitchen. For instance, we won’t be chopping chicken in front of the guest. Even if that means increased manpower, a hotel looks at this as an investment since a show kitchen really enhances guest experience,” says Chef Kinny.
At Tasty Tangles the base kitchen is a shared resource with another restaurant – the dishwasher, the blast chiller and butchery are divided by time.
At Trident Bandra-Kurla Complex in Mumbai, the show kitchen, large as it is, is only a tiny cog in the whole machinery. “We have a kitchen attached to Botticino, which is our Italian speciality and another attached to Maya, which is our Indian speciality. But these are not the only kitchens. There is a full-fledged bakery and butchery, a commissary and a garde manger,” says chef Gambhir.
Trident Bandra Kurla, Named after the dialling code of Mumbai, 022 turns around many stereotypes of show kitchens. For stocks and soups, it uses the massive kitchen at the property as a base kitchen. When space is a luxury, the Trident kitchens promise the most of it to their chefs. “The kind of space what we have is huge. When you open the door to the corridor, you can see 300 metres ahead,” chef Gambhir tells us. The satellite kitchens have the same equipment as the bulk one. The show kitchen at 022 is an extension of the kitchen which has Western, Indian, Tandoor and Asian sections.
The show is understated at 022. “It is like a live kitchen but not in your face. It is there. Mostly the guys are only doing their work. They are not performing,” chef Gambhir says.
And the equipment in the show kitchen rivals that of the base kitchen. “There is no difference in the pan that we use here or inside,” chef Gambhir tells us with obvious pride in all that he surveys.
A show kitchen, or indeed any kitchen works well with the right number of people. “The word that we use is ‘rightsizing’. It is a fact if you have more people than required efficiency drops,” he says, comparing numbers to 15 years ago when there would be at least 50% more staff at his disposal.
Staff working in a show kitchen is trained to deal with guests. When freshness is a selling point, it can be fine-tuned to reach an art. From farm to your table concept is the zenith. Chef Gambhir says, “Last month we visited Trikaya Farms to see where things are grown. It is about how fast we can get products from the farm to the table. We have given a standing order that whether we need it or not we will take a minimum order. So he makes sure that it reaches our doorstep at 8am.”
Another experiment was to bring the vegetable supplier into the kitchen to show him “how the hotel dustbin is cleaner than his truck”. Of course, Chef Gambhir invited him to lunch as well, treating him to guest experience so some of it is passed on to the vegetables.
At the show kitchen and inside the tabletops are temperature controlled and the Rotisol rotisserie, imported from France is pure drama with chicken rotating inside.
ITC Maratha, Mumbai
Rajdeep Kapoor, executive chef, ITC Maratha is very proud of the kitchens he keeps. While the show kitchens are obviously for show, the backend kitchens are filled with messages for staff, posters inviting them to share their troubles, steps painted with checks on whether they are fit to enter, receiving areas proclaiming greenness. The ITC Maratha maintains three show kitchens – the Peshawari, the Pan Asian and Dakshin, in addition to West View with its Volcanic Rocks. “We have branded restaurants which are signature restaurants,” says Chef Kapoor.
He says that the concept is related to consumer trends. “The trend comes from modular kitchens. Mom is cooking, everyone is sitting around and she is serving you. That is the origin. People want this more and more. They expect it,” he says, tracing the origins of showstopper chefs in professional cooking too.
“This is about chefs on stage. Earlier on we had roomali guys who used to work magic in air with their rotis. Malaysian cooking has a lot of drama. And in Italy, there are pizza makers who are display chefs. Teppanyaki also came in where chefs even play with knives and eggs,” he says.
Chef Kapoor says his show kitchens are also popular with the staff. “Everyone wants to work in the show kitchen. It adds glamour to their life. They have been continuously drilled on how to conduct themselves with the guest. This how they are given the opportunity to deal with the guest. They may meet some high profile guests,” he says.
The staff, however, is more mutli-skilled than before. “You have to look for more multi-skilled people. I would hire a Chinese chef who can do a bit of Thai. Or I would look for the reverse. We work with combinations,” he says.
So the added space need by a show kitchen is well worth it. He says, “The kitchen would take 10% more space but they add more value.”
Tasty Tangles, Mumbai
Chef Aloysius D’Silva works with a brand that only does show kitchens. “We have the same outlets in Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai. In Mumbai we have a smaller space – Bengaluru is about 6000sq ft when this is about 3000sqft. Our show kitchens are partitioned with glass.”
Based on the concept of Asian street food, the restaurant promises freshness. “We cook every day, per shift. We make one batch in the morning and another in the evening. For this sort of cuisine we don’t keep stocks or sauce. Here everything is done fresh. We do our vegetable stock everyday in two shifts,” he says.
The concept is popular. “People just go up to the glass and watch cooks work. If you are doing a show kitchen it should be a good show kitchen. There is no point in showing one chef working in a corner,” he says.
However, the kitchen is not interactive, only visible behind glass walls. Staff for a show kitchen is trained for it. “Everyone goes through training in certain brand standards, uniform, conduct in the kitchen and handling of the food. It’s not that we have a show kitchen so we hire a certain calibre of people. We hire and then we train,” he says. The equipment was planned much before the restaurants came up. ““We did all three outlets at the same time three years ago even though only Bengaluru was open at the time, after we designed the menu. If the equipment does not fit we customised it to fit it here,” Chef D’Silva says.
His refrigerators come equipped with drawers so everything is stored in the right holding space. The under-counter fridge works well with the pickup counter.
Interestingly, in the absence of a large base kitchen, “mother sauces are outsourced, procured and sent to all outlets,” he says.
The back area is still used for some basics. “We do a little cutting as well. The space is shared with someone and so is the freezer, the dish washing area, the freezer and the store are shared,” he says.
He says many trends are cyclic and food has always had some drama. He says, “Now there are Lava Stone grills. Traditionally, there is Pathar Gosht, meat cooked on a flat stone.”
Azulia, GRT Grand,Chennai
Ricardo D’Lima, the assistant F&B manager and Executive Mediterranean Chef Ethem Aydemir ensure that everything falls into the category of fresh and homemade at the restaurant. D’Lima says, “We only have a show kitchen for our 15-dish menu. The kitchen is 600sqft for the 64-cover restaurant, which takes up 2000sqft.”
The way to stay fresh is to update frequently. In keeping with the newer demands of guests and design, the equipment is compact. Chef Ethem says, “Now ovens are smaller, grills and cooking ranges are smaller. Pipelines are smaller. New technology that comes into making kitchen reduces labour as well.”
Some of the equipment includes combi ovens, convections and a wood fire oven. “We use lava stone grill and everything is electric.”
D’Lima says that the guests like to visit the kitchen. “Some guests are interested in making their own pizza. Live demos are easier with Mediterranean dishes,” he says.
Azulia serves cuisines from 10 countries. “We work with show flame, pizza oven, breads and carve shawarma,” says Chef Ethem.
The refrigerators are drawer style, controlling temperature. The restaurant plans to go solar by the end of the year. The exhaust is custom made.
