September 2018 Digital Issue

High-speed combination ovens
for a perfect finished product
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newest user interface
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compact series
light duty series
medium to heavy duty series
Rocket Express
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Microwaves that deliver
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The link between the
equipment capturing the
imagination and investment
of the current crop
of operators, and the
rationale to support it is
strong. The restaurant
environment is saddled
with the dual challenge of
both a scarcity of labour
and specialized food-preparation
skills, says John
Placko, culinary director at
Modern Culinary Academy
in Mississauga, Ont. “It’s
hard to run a business
when you have these problems.
But I’m always pushing
people to see there’s
equipment out there to
help overcome them.”
The kitchen of chef
Placko’s Bar 120: Cuisine
Transformed, his restaurant
at Toronto Pearson
International Airport, is
one such shining illustration.
In this “plug-andplay”
space, an array
of modern foodservice
equipment sidesteps the
call for a bloated staff with
sophisticated culinary
talents. “Today, you can
put a complex menu into
an environment where
you don’t have a highly
trained chef,” Placko says.
“All the equipment is built
for a reduced skillset and
reduced labour. Everything
runs on the press of a button
and the kitchen needs
just a single cook.”
Take the TurboChef, a
centrepiece at this tribute
to molecular cuisine (the
first such restaurant in a
North-American airport)
and a standard in Subway
and Starbucks locations.
Chefs prepare crispy
chicken wings and macand-cheese
flatbread in this
INDUSTRY DARLING Sous-vide cooking is a tried-and-tested method
that continues to be a mainstay in restaurants
convection-microwaverapid-cook
oven that’s
attracted foodservice buzz
for its speedy usefulness.
SOUS-VIDE
RESURGENCE
Next on the list is sousvide
— a consistent darling
of the restaurant kitchen
that sees chefs submerge
foods in plastic pouches
or glass jars in a water or
steam bath where temperatures
are tightly controlled.
The cooking method,
which first hit the scene
in the 1970s and was the
subject of a brief revival
in the mid-1980s, is now
in an explosive popularity
curve. That, says Placko,
is because its consistent
performance relieves chefs
of the unpredictability of
their humanity. “If you
have someone highly
skilled, cooking chicken
breasts every day, there are
going to be times when
they’ll over- or undercook
them. With sous-vide, it’s
just time and temperature.
Low skill can always produce
a perfect product.”
Sous-vide cooking —
once the exclusive domain
of high-end restaurants but
now with a broader cooking
base appreciative of its
reliably accurate results —
uses an immersion circulator.
With this smart device
that clips to the side of a
water-filled cooking vessel
and heats it to — and
holds it indefinitely at — a
precise, controlled temper-
iSTOCK.COM/RYAN ROBINSON [SOUS-VIDE FISH]; FOTOCUISINETTE [SOUS-VIDE RIB EYE];
1-866-77CELCO (23526)
www.celco.ca
FOODSERVICEANDHOSPITALITY.COM