We’ve all found a bargain pre-owned item in great condition, and then struggled to get it working properly straight away. This was exactly the situation that Ashley Palmer-Watts found himself in with just a few days until opening his new central London venture, The Devonshire. Luckily, Jestic Foodservice Solutions’ product director Michael Eyre was attending a pre-opening celebration when Ashley asked for some advice.
“Setting up on a tight budget, we’d bought a cook and hold oven because we knew that we wanted to precision slow roast cook the beef, but also hold the finished joints in perfect condition before bringing them out to finish over live embers and carve tableside. We knew what we wanted to do with it, but we were locked out of it. We couldn’t get it to play ball at all or do what we needed it to. Fortunately, Michael is a friend and that night when I asked him to come down, he knew the Moduline range inside out, and he was able to unlock the oven controls, set us up with a profile and add a programme to roast the beef perfectly. After that, we were ready to go. Which was handy, as we opened to the public in about 48 hours’ time!”
The Moduline CHC282 which Ashley had bought is an exceptionally versatile piece of equipment which delivers brilliant cooking at low temperatures to guarantee brilliant end results alongside ease of operation. The kitchen team load 25 four-bone ribs of beef into the Moduline every Saturday evening about 11pm which cook low and slow overnight – retaining essential juices and minimising energy usage – and then holds them in optimal condition at an even 54° until service begins at 12 noon every Sunday. Each joint is then removed from the Cook and Hold and carefully finished by chefs over charcoal embers for about 15 minutes before being loaded onto antique silver carving trollies to the delight of guests around the dining room.
“We’re currently doing more than 400 covers every Sunday from noon until 6pm – and whilst the traditional wisdom would have it that you don’t want a pub roast towards the end of the day, the brilliance of the Moduline is that the last roast serve is absolutely as good as the first one we served hours previously! It’s just a bloody good piece of kit! But it also does a lot more than we first gave it credit for. We have a team member who does the staff food, and the Cook and Hold is their most used piece of equipment. Because we’re open all day, and the team need to eat at different times, they can prepare a stew, a pasta dish or whatever, and it can stay in the Moduline and be served whenever required. The staff get a great meal in perfect condition, whether they are eating early, late, or anytime in-between.”
Since discovering that the unit offers a huge range of flexibility and simplicity of programming the team is also experimenting with a range of other applications. With an operating range from 30° to 160°, the Moduline is perfect for low temperature proving of the more than 600 rolls that are freshly baked on the premises every Sunday service. Each oven is fitted with a 4.3” LCD kitchen-proof programmable touchscreen offering up to nine cooking stage for each programme. This is the ideal solution to perfect The Devonshire’s other signature dish – its Bread & Butter pudding. The Moduline can easily be set to cook at a lower temperature for an hour to set the custard and then move to a higher heat to help cook the top, before Ashley’s expert brigade perfectly brûlée the puddings prior to them reaching diners.
“It’s so easy, and we genuinely didn’t think it would be this simple. We just put the meat – or whatever we’re cooking – in the Moduline, put the probe in, set it and leave to cook. When we get in on Sunday everything is perfectly cooked, ready for finishing and service. The cooking is wonderfully even the whole way through the joint, and when we take them out of the Cook and Hold, the joint is warm all the way through and ready to hit the coals for some char-roasting to finish. We’ve got great product on tap all day long right to the very last table. It’s really helped us to deliver the service we wanted with our Sunday Lunch menu, but we can do so much more than we initially thought. We also use it to gently render the fat down off our joints as well – which we then use with the roasted veg, the yorkshires and to make our fat and butter mix for brushing on to the steaks just before serving – which is an absolutely delicious”.
“I’m so pleased that Michael was on hand that Thursday evening to help open us up to this whole new world of cooking with the Moduline. More than that, Jestic has been brilliant overall – when we have any issues at all, we can call, or text, and know we’ll get a positive response and that the engineer will be out to us quickly. They’ve been accessible and a great support to us, and with some more of their expert advice, I think we’ll be doing even more with the Moduline in the future. It’s a great piece of kit, and I couldn’t see us delivering the service we currently do without it.”
With the Cook & Hold from Moduline really helping ease the pressure in the kitchen the sky really is the limit with the kitchen team – if they can imagine it, the Moduline can help them deliver. It’s just as well, because from the reaction of diners both in the dining room and across social media, it’s clear that The Devonshire has really staked a claim to become the Sunday destination in central London this year.
I’ve known Ashley for years and was genuinely excited to see how he was going to position The Devonshire when he opened late last year. Having gone down into the kitchen to see this oven they’d bought, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was a Moduline Cook & Hold. As one of Jestic’s brands, I knew the potential it had to help improve quality across the kitchen as well as making prep work easier, faster, and less labour intensive.
Just from chatting to Ashley it’s clear that the oven is doing a lot more than they ever thought it could, but its core function of helping them do an overnight roast on Saturday night into Sunday to prepare for the perfect service, has really opened their eyes. The fact that the meat is perfectly cooked is just one element, being held perfectly cooked and warm means that they can craft the perfect finish over hot coals and give diners the best Sunday roast experience in the capital!
I was happy to help, but it’s not just about one person. Jestic has a full team of service and support specialists who can help every kitchen – not just Ashley’s – with a whole range of solutions to help boost business and help kitchens delight guests in pubs, hotels, restaurants and more nationwide.
Michael Eyre, Product Director, Jestic Foodservice Solutions
www.devonshiresoho.co.uk
Instagram @devonshiresoho
For more information on the Moduline Cook and Hold range or to find out more about the full Jestic Foodservice Solutions range offering, please visit www.jestic.co.uk