Heart of the Yellow River
There's no doubting that the 10,000sq ft, £1.3m Oriental Restaurant Group's new central production kitchen is big. But manager Simon Lam is adamant it's not a factory. "We make everything by hand to keep it authentic," he says. "We're not in business to sell a machine-made product."
The decision to open the central production kitchen in Park Royal, London, was a key part of the company's plan for its new chain of Yellow River Cafés, fronted by Chinese cooking star Ken Hom.
The first café opened last month and at least 10 more are planned by the end of next year. In addition, the group has eight other Oriental and Asian restaurants - with a total of 1,110 covers between them - being supplied from the new kitchen.
Darren Wightman, executive chef at the group, explains that there were three main reasons for opting for a central production kitchen. "It ensures the consistency of our product; it reduces the size of the kitchens at the restaurants and maximises revenue generation; and it reduces our head count in the kitchens," he says.
The kitchen opened in August and was built and designed by JAP Contracts, with refrigeration from Williams Refrigeration, including coldrooms and freezers, temperature-controlled prep rooms and a wide range of appliances. Williams also supplied the coldroom panels used to line the walls and ceiling and to divide the separate areas into rooms.
In designing the kitchen, efficient and hygienic workflow was a priority and the starting point was having a single doorway for both delivery and dispatch. Deliveries go to the right of the doorway, to be stored in the dry stores or, in the case of vegetables, raw meat and poultry, in one of the three coldrooms. The food then progresses to one of the four preparation rooms.
Anything that needs cooking then crosses to the left side of the building, to the cooked production area, and, once cooked, is taken to the room next door to be chilled or frozen, packaged and labelled. From there, food is taken to the walk-in freezer or the chilled holding room for storage. Both rooms need to be close to the doorway to make it easy to move the food to the company's 2.3-tonne Mercedes refrigerated delivery truck.
Cold climate
Temperature control is of prime importance. The corridors are maintained at 11-14ºC, while the prep rooms are cooler, at 6-8ºC. Monitoring of food temperatures is rigorous at every stage of production.
Production is split equally between chilled and frozen, with most food packed in five- or 10-portion pouches. Cooked food is chilled rapidly in either a Williams blast chiller or conduction chiller. Dishes such as pork balls and crispy duck are frozen in a Williams walk-in blast freezer.
Wightman says the shelf life of chilled foods such as curry is seven days, but he adds: "It never lasts that long. The restaurants get deliveries two or three times a week and we operate on a first-in, first-out basis, so food is usually used within two or three days."
The kitchen is at present producing about 60 different dishes and this is expected to increase in the New Year. Most dishes - such as Thai green chicken curry and crispy Sichuan aromatic duck - are fully cooked in the central production kitchen, ready to be regenerated in the restaurants.
Vegetables, however, are simply prepared and are dispatched raw to the restaurants for stir-frying. Similarly, rôtisserie specials such as five-spice roast whole poussin and savoury Cantonese-style spare ribs are prepared, marinated and sent raw to the restaurants. Rice is not handled by the central kitchen at all.
With current staffing at about 30 employees working a single shift six days a week, the kitchen is operating at about 60% of its capacity. "Ideally, we would like to turn into a profit centre next year," explains Wightman.
"We plan to start out-selling to both restaurants and retailers, but our first priority has to be to look after our own group."
See feature on Yellow River Café, 23 December.
