VarioCooking Center® helps Royal Garden Hotel appeal to all palates.
[UKPRwire, Sat Jul 11 2009] One of the many things marking out the legendary Royal Garden Hotel, on the edge of London's Kensington Palace Gardens, is the ability of the kitchens to appeal to all palates – offering guests a huge variety of foods, from international cuisines to 24-hour on-demand room service, as well as some of the biggest and best banqueting in the UK.
Executive Chef Steve Munkley oversees a variety of restaurants on ten floors, seven days a week. And he's constantly busy, building the hotel's reputation and serving around 2,000 meals a day, from the simplest breakfasts to fine dining, from single snacks to large banquets.
Catering for this variety recently became much easier when the hotel installed the latest in cooking equipment, the multi-function VarioCooking Center (VCC) from FRIMA. Steve was pleased at how easily it fulfilled a wide range of cooking processes and recipes.
"I'd just cleared out an old boiler from our kitchen and was looking for a versatile unit to fill the space," he says. "We wanted an appliance that would be very adaptable, something that would turn its hand to a variety of cooking methods and still cope with big as well as small amounts."
Steve found the VCC easy to use, thanks to controls which will be familiar to anyone already using the latest types of combi steamer. And it's proved its worth in a wide number of ways.
"The presets are one of the best features – I really like them. There are more than enough for every type of cooking.
"For example, the braising program for belly pork is excellent - there's less loss of cooked weight. And the blanching program is very good for green vegetables – the unit heats up so quickly that the veg retains a super colour."
Temperature recovery of the VCC also impressed him. "It's fabulous," he says. A major problem with a lot of equipment, he argues, is that after you put the food in it's often slow to return to cooking temperature, especially if the items are chilled or frozen.
"But this machine is really, really quick."
This fast heating feature, known as VarioBoost, means there are no hot spots in the pan, ensuring cooking is at the same rate in the corners as well as the centre, reducing the need to stir. FRIMA says this can almost halve the time it takes to cook many items.
Steve likes the way the VCC not only tilts to drain like a bratt pan, but has the option of self-draining. And many other details appeal: "For example, the plug socket at the front for hand blenders and the spare hot plate."
He says there are many more features than he uses, but these are mostly aimed at less experienced staff. "I can see that in a less skilled kitchen a lot of those features would be really handy."
"It's great for banquet breakfasts too," he adds. "We can easily make more sophisticated menu items. For example, rolled omelettes work especially well, and they cook perfectly."
Versatility in cooking equipment has in the past been the preserve of the combi oven, so how does Steve feel the VCC fits in to a kitchen that already has a combi?
"I think it complements a combi, it doesn't replace it," he says. "One crossover is where you might want to boil something, such as vegetables, as opposed to steaming them in a combi."
But he says the unit can do the job of many other kinds of kitchen equipment, potentially saving space by replacing them. "I have the luxury of a choice of a lot of equipment and a large kitchen, but in more limited space I can see it could be used instead of other types of appliance."
And at the end of the day, cleaning is quick, simple and labour-saving, thanks to the non-stick nature of the pans, and the water spray gun which comes as standard.
FRIMA is currently expanding its distributor network in the UK. For information and brochures, or to come to a free Cooking Live demonstration, call FRIMA UK on 0870 312 0321, email info@frima-uk.co.uk or visit www.frima-uk.co.uk
