By Raynah Coutinho
Often when it comes to symmetry, consistency in presentation, sometimes texture and of course, the need to cater to more covers in a shorter turnaround time and in all probability with fewer hands, machines can come to the rescue of the person wearing the tall hat.
Chef’s orders
When it comes to what chefs want in their culinary tools, Manish Sharma, corporate chef and in-charge of food and beverage services, Keys Hotels, sums it up: “My dream kitchen will resemble 007’s workshop. It will be extremely compact with my combo oven, cooking ranges, salamanders, storages at a hand’s distance,” he says. True enough. Back-of-house spaces are getting smaller and teams are shrinking, meaning that the picture he paints is pretty much apt for hospitality today. As such, compact is one of the foremost demands from hoteliers to suppliers. “Weber grills are engineered for its simplicity of use and are fashioned to create almost no mess,” says Sivakumar Kandaswamy, vice-president and country head, Weber-Stephen Barbecue Products India. Similarly, kitchen equipment giant Rational is responding to space-related demands from hotels. “Most restaurants, bakeries and bars are struggling with a limitation of space. For example, usual kitchens offer a small area for equipment like a stove, oven, steamer and grill. Rational combines all these cooking applications into a single unit which needs a space of one square meter only,” says Pinaki Banerjee, chief representative India, Rational India.
“In all kitchen equipment, we look for a consistent output — which is very important for guest satisfaction, low wastage and high efficiency that will support available man power. Technology that allows us to keep up with trends like picture-cakes, homemade chocolate, enrobing and candy making,” says Vikas Shrivastava, executive pastry chef, Le Meridien Delhi.
“A machine that kneads, pre-portions, proves and does the final baking would be perfect,” says Vikas Grover, executive chef, Aditya Sarovar Premiere Hyderabad. Automation is indeed a big consideration, particularly with fewer hands. “Being able to cook without having to stand over the stove constantly to check the cooking process and to get the perfect food result just by the push of a button is something chefs have dreamed of,” says Banerjee.
Moreover, the demand for automation — or at least innovation — is heightened when it comes to the need to maintain squeaky-clean kitchens. Suppliers are not far behind in this area either: “Our dishwashers are DIN, CE certified. The deep-drawn tanks that lack welding joints make them easy-to-clean, besides their automatic self-cleaning feature. The single-button colour-coded operation is easy to understand and operate. For cooking equipment too, ITW’s Bonnet has a special horizontal cooking design that simplifies cleaning, specially the single I-top which does has no joints between two-piece of cooking equipment as these are home to growth of bacteria,” says Avinash Singh, general manager ITW Food Equipment Group.
Across the board, chefs call for better monetary deals, especially as hotels throw in discounts for local diners and all-inclusive packages for resident guests. “These heavy equipments certainly increase a kitchen’s efficiency but it takes a lot of time to break even on the investment. Another concern is after sales support, which in my opinion remains a sore point,”
says Sharma.
When prodded on what dream kitchens should look like, he says, “My dream kitchen would be people-friendly with equipment that allows me to serve the food as well as do my mise en place at one place.” A dream-come-true piece of equipment for Shrivastava is the Hermes JKV 30 which is a chocolate tempering and moulding machine which capable of moulding chocolate and hollow figures. Grover wants equipment that will ease the process of making rotis.
“Visually appealing” is yet another demand that kings of kitchens today put on the table because of the increased amount of live cooking and show kitchens doing the rounds. Kandaswamy says, “Guests are demanding more interactive experiences compared to simply putting out chafing dishes for serving food.”
He adds that another reason why chefs are turning to barbecue equipment is to respond to the demand for slow cooking: “Slow cooking, which includes grilling and smoking is gaining a lot of ground world over and it won’t be long before it becomes a trend-setter in the Indian culinary world,” he adds.
Executive chef Devwrat Jategaonkor at the Radisson Blu Resort and Spa Alibaug — who has evidently delved deep into the science of his equipment says, “I think the quality of the spare parts is the differentiator between Indian products and imported. If there is no compromise on the quality of these, it will directly impact on durability and product quality.”
New tech goes green
The single largest trend across kitchen equipment is energy efficiency. Kitchens are said to come next in line to HVAC — admittedly, they are a distant second — as a hotel’s biggest consumers of energy. Suppliers are finding this to be an important need to cater to. “ITW Food Equipment Group has brought in the most energy efficient options across bakeries, bars and kitchens,” says Singh. The group’s Baxter and Hobart brands are for bakeries, Gamko for bars; for kitchens there are Hobart, Foster, Bonnet,Vulcan and Elro brands.
He elaborates: “With a combination of steam and fresh-water-rinse, our machines have the industry’s least fresh water consumption of one litre per rack. Less water consumption means less heating and lower carbon emissions. Our brand Foster has revolutionised professional refrigeration – a Hydrocarbon option is available at no extra cost. Hydrocarbon is a naturally occurring refrigeration gas, the only commercial gas that boasts zero ozone depletion and has minimal global warming potential.”
ITW’s Bonnet brand has specially designed burners with horizontal flames. Singh explains that these bring down the loss in heat energy.
At another kitchenware giant, Rational, the latest product is the SelfCookingCenter® whiteffiency® that enables chefs to control the cooking process in the best way for each product irrespective of whether it is fish, meat, poultry, bakery products, egg or side dishes — even taking the desired result into account. “The focus is on products that not only bring hotels financial savings through lower consumption of power, water, fat and raw materials and reduced use of chemicals by “automatic de-scaling with the new CareControl function, but also help our customers operate in a sustainable manner,” says Banerjee.
He adds that the company’s newest product, the SelfCookingCenter® whiteffiency® requires significantly less energy, water and raw materials by transmitting heat to the product by means of steam, hot air or a combination of the two. “In terms of figures this means, for example, that the use of raw materials is reduced by up to 20 per cent through optimised cooking processes compared to our previous model. Furthermore, the unit requires up to 70 per cent less energy compared to traditional kitchens without any combi-steamer,” he says.
At Weber, an eco-friendly alternative to coal is being touted. “Weber sells charcoal briquettes which are made from coconut shell waste. They burn longer, emit less ash and smoke and are environment friendly,” says Kandaswamy.
CINDERELLA STORY
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Jategaonkar won India its first silver medal at the International Culinary Olympics 2012. We get him to tell us what tools it took:
The butter sculpture was hand-crafted. The tools used were fashioned in-house as per our requirements. We prepared these using vegetables and thermocol. I used carrots to punch doors and windows in the castle. Sharp wooden tools were used to carve intricate details. Bamboo sticks were used to carve hair and clothing.
The biggest challenge was to transport it all the way from Alibaug to Erfurt in Germany. It was hand-crafted here and only the top tower was assembled in Germany. A special box which could hold all the tools as well as the wheels for transporting it were designed by me. Also, the temperature had to be kept below 30°C.
