Manufacturers of kitchen equipment provide a ceaseless parade of new products with countless options and specialized functions. True innovation makes everyone’s life easier and better but comes along a lot less frequently than your equipment suppliers’ catalogs. Innovation is not a palette of pastel colors for your new rice steamer or designer uniforms for your kitchen staff.

Worthwhile, innovative additions to your kitchen improve food quality, increase customer satisfaction, and simplify cooking processes while making you feel like they were worth the money spent.

William Eaton, principal and former president of Cini-Little International; John Egnor, president of JEM Associates; and Kathleen Seelye, president of Food Service Design and Planning for Ricca Newmark Design, follow those guidelines when creating commercial kitchens for their design firms and in judging the prestigious Kitchen Innovations™ Awards at the National Restaurant Association’s 2006 Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show® held May 20-23 in Chicago.

They sat on the panel of four design experts and five multi-unit company executives to evaluate and select groundbreaking products to boost productivity and food quality in commercial kitchens in this second annual competition. As well as recommending the winners of the competition (find those at www.hotelfandb.com by clicking on Extras & Galleries), the trio of seasoned professionals offers here a look at kitchen equipment that is at the forefront of today’s big trends.

Create Theater

For the past two decades, chefs have sought to provide a fuller dining experience by including diners in the preparation of their food. The dining-as-theater movement has found itself edging out farther and farther into the service area.

Eaton cites the arrival of the Ventilated Ceiling (Vent Master) as the ultimate enabler for bringing the kitchen right to the table. “These systems have been in use in Europe for 40 years now,” says Eaton, “and they are slowly making their way past fire and health departments here.” The system hangs from the ceiling and hides ductwork, filters, and all mechanical elements above stainless steel panels. The cost is perhaps greater than standard hoods, but the unobtrusive—even attractive— appearance of the ventilation system and its range of capabilities allows the kitchen to be arranged for best flow, for inviting appearance, or for space constraints without having to accommodate ducts or obstruct views.

“Everything is theater now,” says Seelye. Ricca Newmark recommends and installs open hearth ovens, tandoori ovens, microbrewery displays, and enormous live seafood holding tanks to enliven restaurant atmosphere. “There has been a great progression of cooking equipment for ethnic cuisines—–like the tandoori oven—that we can display. We often install hearth ovens with multiple openings to increase visibility for more diners. In that sense, it becomes theater in the round.”

Seelye’s solution to ventilation problems is the use of variable speed fans. Laser technology allows the fans to “sense” the amount of smoke and heat in the air and to regulate its speed accordingly. “Ventilation is the number-one utility cost for restaurants,” says Seelye, “and installing a smarter ventilation system can save from 40 percent to 50 percent of that cost.” Seelye says demand ventilation systems like the Melink Intelli-Hood® are a worthwhile alternative to single-speed hoods that run constantly, pumping out kitchen fumes and heat along with much of your precious airconditioned atmosphere meant to comfort your guests.

Save Energy & Time

Energy savings, which might fall in the “green technology” category, can apply as well to the improvements in the fast cooking technologies, but time savings is the real appeal there.

John Egnor has been impressed by the marvelous cooking speeds of programmable ovens that employ convection, impingement, and microwave capabilities. “Units like (the Merrychef 402S Oven) can cook food incredibly fast,” says Egnor, “so fast that a pizza might take only a minute and a half.”

Merrychef claims the 402S can cook 10 to 15 times faster. Ceramic coating insulates the metal in the racks to permit the use of metal pans in the oven with electromagnetic arcing. In addition, the 402S has a built-in catalytic converter that eliminates the need for hood ventilation.

The Electrolux Air-O-Speed™ Combi-Microwave Oven (see NRA Roundup, page 57) is a recent addition to the market offering the combination of cooking capabilities and accommodating up to 10 metal hotel pans. Seelye sees the advantage of using smaller combination units for remote locations, like a poolside snackbar or clubhouse grille far from the main kitchen. She also recommends Perfect Fry “Perfect Fryer”units–which are self-contained, ventless and use 17 inches of counterspace–for such applications.

Food Safty First

Whatever the innovation in kitchen equipment, food safety is paramount. Eaton, Egnor and Seelye each stressed various facets of safe food handling. Seelye pointed to numerous advances in “smart kitchen technology” that let chefs and managers monitor food in various stages of preparation. Likewise, Egnor emphasized the special attention necessary to steward banquet-sized quantities of food through preparation and to the table safely. He sees the ever-popular and constantly improving blast chillers, blast freezers, and combiovens as well worth the cost for the safety, food quality, and reduction of food waste they provide.

Eaton agrees, adding that he suspects many chefs are still discovering all of the capabilities made possible by each unit’s programmability. “It’s like my laptop. I basically use it as a fancy typewriter, but I could probably launch a rocket with it.” He takes special interest in food safety. “Seventy-eight percent of foodborne illnesses result from poor hand washing,” he insists, so it is not surprising that he advocates a “religious enforcement of sanitation.”

To that end, he recommends integrating one of the many fully automatic handwashing stations— soap, water, towels, antiseptic—into every kitchen design as well as a station for front-of-the-house staff. Systems are available that read staff badges and record handwashing history.

Eaton doesn’t think this is excessive at all, stating, “People don’t forgive a restaurant for food poisoning.” He believes the recent experimental implementation of wash stations at the entrance to some college dining halls will prove beneficial and is confident that issues like avian flu will drive the public to accept and demand such measures.

These experts’ evaluations lend a valuable lesson for any chef or manager considering purchasing equipment for a new or existing facility. The bottom line is to determine if the item will increase food quality, save time or money, and enhance the dining experience. In the words of Bill Eaton, when you look at a new piece of equipment, look for “solved problems.”

Denny Lewis is a frequent contributor to Hotel F&B Executive.