Ayear and a half after firing up a custom-built, $180,000 French-made cooking suite at the Blue Duck Tavern, an American-menu restaurant in Washington, D.C., executive chef Brian McBride reported that the pricey gizmo continues to stoke high morale and productivity from his cooking brigade and draw admiring glances from guests.
“It’s the centerpiece of our kitchen,” McBride said of his Molteni suite, which garnered much local press attention when the Blue Duck opened in May 2006 in the Park Hyatt Washington hotel, replacing the former Melrose restaurant after a nearly yearlong renovation.
The gas-fired unit, which has cobalt-blue enamel befitting the restaurant’s name and gleaming mirror-polished stainless steel, is a striking element of restaurant designer Tony Chi’s classic American style.
The Molteni reflects a couple of equipment trends. One is the increasing prominence of showpiece-quality cooking equipment in the exhibition kitchen. Another is the practice of combining multiple cooking applications into a “suite,” or integrated whole, for space efficiency, productivity and ergonomic advantages. The Blue Duck’s suite incorporates six high-firepower open-top burners; one plancha, or stainless-steel griddle; one flattop; two deep-fryers; three ovens and four refrigerated drawers plus warming drawers and shelving—all in an 18-foot-by-6-foot footprint.
But has the glitzy rig lost its allure with the passage of time, like a Christmas toy taken for granted after the holiday?
No, McBride says.
“We haven’t put it in the closet,” he said. “It’s still very nice to use.”
What difference has the suite made for you and your crew?
It’s extremely pleasing to the eye, and it makes work fun because you enjoy your workspace. I think it has given the cooks a greater sense of pride. And they don’t have to move back and forth as much as they would on a straight cooking line. They can slide things and hand things back and forth to each other.
What is the benefit of the suite’s rectangular, island design?
It’s approachable on all sides. It keeps the guys close together for communication. Three people work on it during service, five or six at prep time.
What are some of the most useful features?
The four refrigerated drawers that are built right into the suite. They’re designed so you can easily reach the mise en place. Obviously, when you’re working in limited space—and this is a very open kitchen—you have to be minimalist. And we designed it with a lot of free space on top, where the guys can put their cutting boards to do their prep work.
If you specified this suite again, would you add anything different?
I would probably have a salamander built in. We could do gratins.
Does Blue Duck have any modestly priced equipment of note?
We use old-fashioned wooden, hand-crank ice cream machines, which I bought online for about $70 apiece, and we use electric portable roasters to keep biscuits warm, which cost about $40. And we have immersion blenders, about $30 each. That’s about all that we let the guys use, because our mission statement is to go back to basics.