Sizing Up Equipment
Small appliances grant chefs creative freedom in the kitchen. But in some cases, bigger is better.
By Kate Leahy, Senior Associate Editor -- Restaurants & Institutions, November 1, 2008
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THE GOODS Just as an Italian sandwich shop wouldn’t be an Italian sandwich shop without a panini press, myriad restaurants help define their points of view with their choices of equipment. Here, three very different foodservice concepts share a handful of their favorite small-scale kitchen workhorses. 
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Adam Hegsted has a very practical reason for favoring small equipment in his kitchen. “It makes our lives easier,” says the executive chef of Brix in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
Small kitchen equipment—toasters, stand mixers, handheld blenders, ice-cream machines, juicers and their ilk—are kitchen workhorses. Like ovens and fryers, these machines are called upon several times a day in most operations. Kitchen staff often can transport them easily to different parts of the kitchen during prep hours and then clean and store them before service starts. And, as any chef who relies on these appliances will freely admit, if they happen to break down before a busy dinner service, their contributions will sorely be missed.
Such equipment helps professional kitchens run efficiently and consistently. For a cook to make mayonnaise by hand, for example, he or she needs simply a large bowl, a whisk and a strong arm to whip oil into the egg-yolk mixture. But it’s faster and arguably more foolproof to make mayonnaise in a food processor or blender. By training cooks to use power equipment to execute recipes, Hegsted says, Brix is able to serve more-consistent products.
Innovation in the Kitchen
In addition to promoting consistency, smaller pieces of equipment encourage menu creativity, allowing chefs to make more of their menu items and ingredients in house. Hegsted, for example, makes ice cream each day, using a tabletop ice-cream machine with 2½-quart capacity to mix small batches, and he enjoys changing the flavors regularly.
At BLVD 16 in Los Angeles, Executive Chef Simon Dolinky keeps a couple of juicers on hand for creative inspiration. For a side-dish preparation, he juices carrots and then uses the liquid to cook diced carrots sous-vide. He also frequently juices fennel, celery, rhubarb and apples and incorporates the liquids into broths and sauces. The juicers come in handy at the bar as well, where fresh local fruits become part of mixed drinks.
Although Dolinky uses both professional and nonprofessional juicers in his restaurant (the nonprofessional model is less cumbersome, he claims), he relies for the most part on commercial-grade equipment, which is more powerful and tends to last longer. “You can’t beat buying a durable piece of equipment,” he says, adding that with a cheaper machine, “you’re going to have to replace it in six months.”
Growing Forward
As operators’ needs change, equipment preferences occasionally have to be rethought. In 1993, Leslie Mackie’s first location of Macrina Bakery & Cafe in Seattle encompassed an 850-square-foot space with a four-deck baking oven, a triple sink, two convection ovens and two mixers. After opening Macrina’s third location in a 10,000-square-foot space this fall, however, Mackie’s equipment needs changed dramatically.
To make the new, much-larger bakery more efficient, she purchased an ergonomic tilt spiral mixer (r.) with twice the capacity of her original mixers. In addition to its larger size, the machine also makes the breadmaking process easier on bakers’ backs. It tips to the side and pours dough directly onto the work surface, eliminating the need for bakers to bend over a machine to lift out the dough.
Although the new mixer has increased the bakery’s capacity, Mackie doesn’t want to add large pieces of equipment that would replace hands-on craftsmanship.
“We keep things very low-tech around here,” Mackie says. “The equipment that we purchased, we did it with the idea that we would cut down labor time and make things more efficient. We didn’t purchase equipment to automate things.”
Contact writer at kate.leahy@reedbusiness.com
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