On the level
Most hotels derive the greater part of their revenue from room occupancy, but at the Nottingham Royal Moat House business is driven much more by the food and beverage operation, based on regular demand from a loyal local clientele.
The customers are not necessarily booked into any of the 201 rooms; they come because they like the food. "We give value for money for the prices we charge," says executive chef Dennis Kane.
The hotel uses a cook-chill production unit to provide food services, an operation often found in the institutional sector, but rarely in a luxury, four-star hotel.
The hotel has a choice of four restaurants clustered around a central atrium: the Avenue Brasserie, Marcellos, Kings Carvery and Blazers (called the Grill Room before the redesign), plus room service for guests. But the hotel had underestimated the demand for restaurant services.
Last refurbished 11 years ago, the cook-chill kitchen was "well past its sell-by date" when Kane and his production chef, Matt Loveridge, came to the hotel in 1991.
Problems with the kitchen were to do with distance and time. Food had to be sent up in two lifts to the restaurants and banqueting areas from the cook-chill basement below. Work-flow was not smooth, with chefs crossing over each other to send up orders. The environment was hot, poorly ventilated and noisy.
Kane and Loveridge decided they needed a kitchen with more space. Covers had risen to about 9,000 per week, and it was increasingly difficult to organise food production from the basement. "It was a nightmare," says Kane.
So they approached Queens Moat Houses management with their idea to relocate the kitchen upstairs, bringing production kitchen, restaurants and connecting satellite kitchens together in one area.
Because twice as much money was being generated from food and beverage as from rooms, the kitchen area was given the lion's share of a £1.5m refurbishment budget.
Kane already had a good idea of what was required, having worked with cook-chill kitchens at Holiday Inns, but he also conducted a kitchen survey to anticipate needs. Together with the local environmental health officer and QMH equipment buyer, Nigel Joyce, Kane and Loveridge drew up plans. Cook-chill specialist Robert Croft of RC Associates was also consulted.
The two chefs started to look for equipment in 1993. Several visits were made to similar establishments, looking at working kitchens, including a cook-chill unit in the London Park Lane Hilton, and a local hospital using fast recovery fryers. In the end, a selection was made from several suppliers and manufacturers. Maintenance contracts were taken out on all items.
Now, as well as the main kitchen with the chef's office at its centre, each restaurant and the banqueting department has a satellite kitchen, staffed by two chefs. Food sent out from the production kitchen is finished there prior to service.
To make room for the alterations, which took place in 1994-95, a sauna and adjoining offices were demolished. The old kitchen was gutted, and rebuilt on the first floor at a total cost of about £500,000, well within the allocated budget.
In the new layout, the chef's office is the control hub of the complete production unit. Work-flow and command lines radiate from the central production kitchen to the satellite kitchens and restaurants on the outer edge.
It was decided to divide the main area into three interconnecting sections: carvery, production and cold kitchen. Each section now has its own dedicated equipment and food preparation areas. The dish- and pot-wash area is separate. "The work-flow is always forward, towards the cook-chill unit and then to the satellite kitchens in the restaurants," says Kane.
An extra satellite kitchen and central reservations desk were also created at this time. The desk uses a Fidelio system for restaurant and banqueting bookings, which also provides sales mix and revenue information for the kitchen.
Blazers, which replaced the old Grill Room and satellite kitchen, has 150 seats. By updating the equipment, Kane was able to extend the Blazers menu. He explains that Stott Benham gas-fired grills were chosen "because they can cook a 7oz sirloin steak to well-done in five minutes". A Master Jet fryer from Garland Catering Equipment was also installed.
Work on the production kitchen area began in July 1995 and was completed in two stages. This was to enable the carvery side of the kitchen and the flow of food to continue as normal. Kane describes this period of time as "very hard - but we did it". The interior walls were knocked down, and a new production kitchen with cook-chill facilities was created in the old sauna and office space.
Non-slip quarry tiles were chosen for the floor: Kane felt that sheet flooring would not be able to take the heavy daily traffic as effectively.
A new ventilation system was chosen from GAP Contracts. It is set into a suspended ceiling integrated with flush lighting. The interior walls are painted with Thortex paint, which is durable, able to fill in gaps and repair hard surfaces. All refrigeration units have been supplied by Foster Refrigerator. There is a large, walk-in cold storage room between the sections.
The carvery side of the kitchen has standard cooking units. A new gas-fired boiling top from Garland Catering Equipment has been used to replace a stove, increasing efficiency. A Hobart gas pressure-steamer is used for cooking vegetables, in combination with a Hoshizaki flake ice machine, to preserve quality, flavour and colour by rapid cooling. A bespoke gas bain-marie and hot cupboard unit was made by GAP Contracts. There is also a MJ 45 speed fryer from Garland.
The production kitchen has a line of three gas-powered pressure bratt pans. Two of these are from Garland Technyform bespoke range and have a 160-litre capacity. "They can cook 200lb of meat in 40 minutes," says Kane. The third, from Hobart, has a 130-litre capacity. A drain is inset into the floor below the bratt pans, for ease of cleaning.
Beside the bratt pans are two Rational combination 40 grid gas-fired ovens. These are used to steam, grill, roast, braise and regenerate for banqueting. "Each one can take 120 chickens," says Loveridge. Sauces are cooked in bulk using a Cleveland tilting kettle from Garland. This has a 100-litre capacity, and is also used for liquidising. Kane has found it "practical and easy to clean". An area is set aside for portioning hot foods.
There is also a Master Jet Fryer from Garland, selected for rapid recovery time. Kane is very pleased with this fryer and has installed one each in two of the satellite kitchens.
A low wall, with food preparation sinks on either side, separates the cold side of the kitchen from the hot side.
The cold section has a large capacity blast chiller and freezer from Foster Refrigerator. This is next to a walk-in cold portioning room, taking up a third of the entire production kitchen area. Food produced in the hot kitchen is chilled or frozen and transported via an interconnecting door to the portioning room for service preparation. Items are vacuum-packed and stored prior to being requisitioned by the restaurant and banqueting satellite kitchens. These are adjacent to the main production kitchen.
Several Foster gastronorm under-counter refrigeration units are used in the production kitchen.
A separate walk-in chilled holding room is located in the middle of the carvery, production and cold kitchen sections. Food is held for processing, enough for one day's consumption. Loveridge explains: "The morning chef will take food to be cooked from this room. It has been prepared by the evening shift and is ready for use."
Work is done in two shifts, with a minimum of five chefs on each. Chefs who come in to do the banqueting do the bake-off in the hot kitchen, and load up ovens for regeneration. Each satellite kitchen also has one or two chefs.
Food is controlled using a daily production sheet, and requisitioned for the morning and afternoon shift by the satellite kitchen chefs. Kane is very strict regarding cooking procedures: "With our systems, we can trace every item cooked to the chef who produced it."
Kane is pleased with the new kitchen. He says with the addition of technically advanced equipment, valuable staff time has been saved: "Before, we had six bratt pans needing two staff to control them, now there is only one." The revamp of Blazers has paid off, with covers up by 2,000 a week on last year's figures. Other benefits are an improved work environment and good staff morale.
As a result of the success of this move, QMH is now considering implementing the system for other hotels in the chain.
