To amend a popular quote from the film Field of Dreams, “He was coming, so they built it.”
“He” is Michelin-starred Chef Alain Montigny from Dolce Hotels and Resorts’ Chantilly, France, property, and “they” are the staff at Dolce Basking Ridge in Basking Ridge, New Jersey. The “it” can be described as a do-it-yourself show kitchen, built around an existing display kitchen in the hotel’s Vita restaurant and never before used for a major event.
All these factors came together in August for a five-course Chef’s Table dinner that drew a standing ovation from nearly 40 of Dolce’s top meeting clients. In the process, the hotel created a new high-end group dining category, where a minimum of 30 people will pay $300 each for future versions of the event.
“The clients were blown away. Many had been to smaller Chef’s Table [dinners] before, and they said this was beyond belief,” says Andrew Christie, director of operations at Dolce Basking Ridge. “We’re constantly pushing the envelope, and this is an example of that.”
To understand how the envelope was pushed, it’s important to go back to August, when a simpler event was planned, using a simpler kitchen setup.
VISION TO DECISION
Montigny was scheduled to stay at Basking Ridge for Dolce’s rebranding announcement in New York City on August 13 (when the company officially became Dolce Hotels and Resorts). Management at Basking Ridge decided to utilize Montigny’s presence, asking him to contribute to a Chef’s Table dinner for about 16 preferred meeting clients.
Montigny and Basking Ridge Executive Chef Paul Bogardus had originally planned to prepare and present the meal in the hotel’s regular Chef’s Table area within the main banquet kitchen. But Christie realized the Michelin-starred chef’s arrival was an opportunity to try something bigger.
“I said, ‘Why don’t we make this into a grand event, invite some of the regional Dolce chefs to participate, and do it from the display kitchen?’ People looked at me like I was nuts,” Christie says.
What puzzled those at the property was how they were going to fit nearly 40 diners into a 14-foot-by-32-foot area around the kitchen. In addition, each place setting required:
- Five wine glasses and one water glass
- Four forks, four knives, and one spoon
- One showplate
- One rectangular bread plate
The space solution, according to Christie, was to go up. He envisioned tiered amphitheater-style seating for 40 built on top of the restaurant’s hot and cold buffet kiosks, which are just seven feet from the display kitchen. “The first thing I did was stand on top of them and pretend I was sitting down to see if there was a view. There was, and I thought, ‘Wow, this is a great view up here,’” Christie says.
From there, the vision became a reality. The engineering staff at Basking Ridge built three tiers of wooden risers to support tables and seating around the display kitchen, and six banquet servers executed multiple dry runs to make sure the setup was functional and practical. Meanwhile, Christie invited seven other Dolce chefs from properties in the East and Southeast, and everyone collaborated on a menu two weeks before the event.
A key question remained: How would all nine chefs, a sommelier, and Christie fit in a 16-by-22- foot kitchen space at the same time during dinner?
KITCHEN ORCHESTRATION
The answer was to assign two chefs to each course and one chef to dessert. They would prepare most of their items in the out-of-view banquet kitchen directly behind the display kitchen and present each course two chefs at a time, like a series of acts in a stage production.
“If there weren’t so many chefs, we probably could have prepared all the dishes up front. We have nearly all the equipment you could ask for there,” Christie says.
The display kitchen had recently been renovated to include a new Montague oven; an undercounter Alto-Shaam cook-and-hold oven; and a Garland salamander, fryer, and flat-top grill. Some of that equipment was used in front of the audience. For example, Chef Ralph Croteau and Chef Jayson DeMarco poached quail eggs, and Chef Len Elias and Chef Mary Trochowski deep fried breaded chčvre gelato. All the chefs garnished their dishes while explaining the details to guests.
The result was a cleanly choreographed show, giving two chefs, plus Sommelier Jerry Sadutto and Christie space to work and present during each course, while the other chefs waited their turns backstage. From a back-of-the-house standpoint, Bogardus says his banquet kitchen gave the event a logistical foundation, providing the chefs with equipment and space to prepare their dishes and allowing regular food production to continue at the 171-room hotel.
“Because of the Chef’s Table, we had to pull everything that was in the display kitchen for ŕ la carte service and put it in the back kitchen,” says Bogardus. “But we didn’t have to rent any extra equipment, and when the chefs came in, I assigned everyone a workstation and gave them each a rolling rack cabinet to store ingredients.”
THEY BUILT IT … MORE WILL COME
Christie says the cost for the entire event, including meals and lodging for the other chefs, ingredients, labor, and a full video crew documenting the dinner, was about $14,000. He says that to repeat the event without a video crew, using just Bogardus and in-house staff, however, would cost less than $4,000. They could also cook and present most of the food in the display kitchen. And the risers built for the occasion are now part of the hotel’s inventory, making setup easier in the future.
As for the Dolce brand, this was an event that had enormous risk—utilizing an untried show kitchen setup in full view of many important customers. But, by successfully showcasing the talents of nine different Dolce chefs on one menu, they sent a message to the industry: “We’re not just a bunch of conference centers with cafeteria-style dining,” says Sadutto, director of F&B at Dolce’s IBM Learning Center in Armonk, New York. “We can cook at a very high level and promote a true dining experience for guests while they’re here.”
