When a world-class hotel appears on that glittering stretch of Las Vegas real estate known as the Strip, even back-of-house service areas can have milliondollar views—and some interesting foodservice layouts and challenges too.

Such is the case with Mandarin Oriental, Las Vegas, which opened in December as part of the MGM Mirage CityCenter development. The non-gaming property includes 392 guest rooms, 225 residences, six dining outlets, and 12,000 square feet of banquet and meeting space. The unusual, geometric design and floorplan resulted in kitchens being located far from some of their final service points—while still needing to deliver top-notch service.

FUNCTION FOLLOWS FORM
The building’s angular appearance—the footprint is essentially two slim, adjacent trapezoids ending in angles on either side—was created by architectural firm Kohn Pederson Fox and interior designer Adam Tihany. Consulting firm Romano Gatland led the back-of-house foodservice design.

Most of Mandarin Oriental’s foodservice action takes place on the third level. The main kitchen and MOzen Bistro, serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner, are on one end of the building. The ballroom, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Las Vegas Boulevard, and a small satellite kitchen are on the other end. A narrow, 300-foot-long service corridor (about the length of a football field) connects the two areas.

Since the corridor’s five-foot width prevents two-way food cart traffic, the secret to serving five-star banquets was to make the satellite kitchen as well equipped as possible so chefs can “plate, sauce, and garnish at last minute,” says Mandarin Oriental Executive Chef Jason Weaver. “Everything goes out hand-carried as if you were in the restaurant so that food is hot when it reaches guests.”

The 1,000-square-foot satellite kitchen was designed for service. It includes two built-in plate lines with hot wells and heat lamps, two speed ovens for last-minute flashing, plus plenty of walk-in coolers and freezers to hold bulk food from the main kitchen. The corner closest to the pre-function area houses a beverage/ bar area that can be opened for service during functions. Another corner is reserved for staging dirty dishes, which get wheeled back to the main kitchen in shifts to be washed. At peak times, the kitchen has about 15 chefs plating and finishing off plate presentations for the team of servers, who carry plates three at a time out to guests.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE MAIN KITCHEN
Designing the main kitchen was also logistically challenging. “We were dealing with angles everywhere,” says Tim Stafford, who served as one of Romano Gatland’s lead kitchen designers for the project. “It’s a linear trapezoidal shape, with columns to contend with. The pantry, surrounded by elevators, is almost serpentine. It took a great deal of logistics study to make sure things would flow properly.”

The resulting 7,120-square-foot kitchen turns out about 1,200 covers daily for banquets, MOzen Bistro, Mandarin Bar & Tea Lounge, the Pool Café, room service, and employee dining. The cookline is divided in two, with bulk cooking on one side and short-order (for MOzen and room service) on the other. The room service supply area is between the short order line and the elevator bank. The dish room is at the back. Meat prep and garde manger areas are located on the first floor. The kitchen’s cooking equipment lineup features a blast chiller, grills, combi oven, six doubledeck convection ovens, two tilting skillets, and steam kettles. Offices, cold storage, and a service bar are also found near the main kitchen.

Despite foodservice operations stretched out over multiple floors, Mandarin Oriental employees say they are able to maintain the brand’s high standards. “Any time you open a new property, you have to learn how it works and adjust so you have the best flow,” Chef Weaver adds.

Janice Cha has covered foodservice for 12 years, focusing on kitchen equipment for the past seven years.

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