Jenni Rose

Lu Ban Restaurant

Vision Commercial Kitchens

Lu Ban is a newly opened restaurant in Liverpool which focuses on Tianjin cooking. It is an elegant and modern venue which offers a unique experience with an exquisite array of dining options including small plates, tasting menus and Tianjin banquets. The project is teamed up with Tianjin Food Group in China, with the mission to educate in terms of Chinese culinary arts. Lu Ban is a commercial restaurant with a training centre integrated into it which offers a Chinese culinary arts programme which students, chefs and the general public can enrol on. Education is also at the heart of the dining experience of the restaurant as there is an element of storytelling throughout the menu, with each dish having it’s own story behind it which relates to the experiences in Tianjin; therefore allowing guests to educate themselves on Tianjin culture whilst dining.

The brief was to design and provide a kitchen, chefs table, bar, dishwash area and ‘food lab’. The kitchen was to be designed in the style of the kitchens in Tianjin, with an open plan feel and was to include specific equipment which came directly from China . The kitchen was also to feature a chef’s table for specialist dining experiences; it was therefore imperative that the kitchen itself was extremely aesthetically pleasing as well as functional as it would be on display. The client had a specific vision of what they wanted the bar to be like and how many stations it would need, as everything was to be authentic looking and reflect the design and style seen in Tianjin.

Client Satisfaction

Our Account Manager for this project has worked with Mike Mounfield (Lu Ban’s Ops Director) for around 17 years and they have worked on numerous projects together as well as recommending us to others. The fact that he has continued to use Vision and given recommendations is testament to a high level of client satisfaction.

Julie’s Restaurant

TAG Catering Equipment UK Ltd

The famous restaurant Julie’s is a historic icon of West London, bringing the wine bar party concept to London in the late 60’s, made it a Holland Park favourite, neighbourhood classic and hang-out of the Hollywood set, high society and rock stars attracting regulars including The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Madonna and later Princess Diana and Kate Moss.

Closed in early 2015, initially for a 6-month refurbishment, it finally reopened in 2019 following extreme local authority planning constraints that caused lengthy building delays.

Our brief, to bring Julie’s into the 21st century whilst maintaining its distinctive, decadent style of alcoves and small corridors, sensitively capturing Julie Hodgess’ original, comfortable relaxing design and “wine bar” soul of the original bohemian setting.

Owners Tim and Cathy Herring wanted an innovative, modern and efficient kitchen in the confined, basement location. This was not a tendered brief and required the expertise of TAG’s design team to develop all the required concepts.

Key aspects:

• Design a modern and operationally efficient, cost-saving kitchen that would be positioned in the now lower, basement location;
• To cater for an increase in covers despite being significantly smaller than previous kitchen;
• Accommodate both lunch, dinner and party/banquet services;
• Overcome the lack of space required for mechanical and electrical equipment;
• Overcome lack of available power;
• Create a sense of theatre;
• Design a replacement, modern bar that would be a focal point in the new Champagne Bar;
• Ensure the former wine bar heritage remained at its heart;
• Standard and craftsmanship to be of highest standards;
• Hygiene big factor;
• Comply with strict planning regulations;

Client Satisfaction

Shay Cooper became Chef Patron of Julie’s in July 2019 as the installation was taking place; With limited input on the design he understandably had questions regarding the design intentions and justifications, after using the kitchen he made the following complements, a real accolade:-

“TAG did an outstanding job with the installation of the kitchen. Once the kitchen was completed, I was thoroughly impressed with the level of workmanship and fabrication.

“Everything about the design and equipment specified exceeded my expectations and I’m incredibly happy to work in it.

“The DeManincor range is an absolute pleasure to work on. It is very low maintenance and so easy to clean, we all love it.

“The kitchen has been really well designed by Tyron at TAG and flows well, especially as it’s such a small space, it has everything I need”

Tim Herring – owner stated:-

“A seamless and flawless TAG installation, many thanks.”

Picturedrome

CHR Foodservice Equipment Ltd

From initially meeting with one trader who we’d worked with before, CHR were introduced to Nick Johnson of Market Operations. Having opened 2 similar sites in the Northwest in the previous 5 years and built up a strong team of trades, Nick was keen to find a “kitchen partner” that he could rely on to meet his vision. From there CHR were further introduced to all of the potential traders for Picturedrome and the process of delving into their menu, style of service and requirements from their unit began.

Each trader has a passion for their product. Each trader wants to deliver the best product they can as part of this collective. Each trader wants their share of up to 2500 customers that Nick predicts will come through the doors on a Saturday. So while the individual briefs varied in required equipment, the overall emphasis was on speed of service, flexibility to change the menu and ensuring that the energy requirements were balanced across the site.

From Market Operations point of view, we had to design a potwash area that could cope with the predicted numbers, a harmonised extraction system that allowed for pragmatism within such a vast building whilst maintaining adherence to DW172 as well as ensuring that noise, odours and grease were managed across the site which is so close to local residents. We also had to make sure that fabrication across the entire venue reflected the overall design goals of the building owner.

11 different briefs, 1 collective outcome.

Client Satisfaction

“…. the acid test of any relationship is would I use CHR again? And the answer to that is “Yes”.

“The service CHR provided at quote stage was concise, professional and comprehensive.

“At the build stage CHR worked really well and in partnership with our guys on site.

“On completion, the handover was comprehensive.

“CHR have forged personal and good relationships with all of the kitchens and they with you.

“So – all told, thank you CHR for your role in making Picturedrome what it now is!”

– Nick Johnson, Head Honcho, Market Operations Ltd

Morrisons, Canning Town – Market Kitchen Concept

Caterware Limited

The client brief was to study their existing facilities within 400 existing stores and come up with something that would:

• Combine their Market St Deli and Market St Café operations into one all encompassing facility;
• Create a FOH Design to expand their current offer with a host of new, fresh and ‘on trend’ cooking and serving techniques;
• Must have the look and feel of high end, trendy High St restaurants and deli type take away venues;
• Design to encourage store visitation and customer experience and encourage larger spend per head, customer Trade Up etc;
• Design must be sustainable and consistent but able to accept regional adaptation on various locations;
• Create something never ever seen in a Supermarket environment;
• All Food was to come from In Store and be cooked In Store;
• Equipment specified was to enable cooking operations to be standardised, processed and provide consistent quality;
• All equipment had to be ‘Trainable’ and used by sometimes semi skilled personnel;
• All equipment had to be ratified by a myriad of Morrisons Depts, from H & S to Sustainability and everything in between;
• Everything had to comply with the many environmental policies and agreements that Morrisons had signed up and agreed to;
• We had to sign various NDA’s and couldn’t even discuss the project specifically with other parties and even our suppliers.

Client Satisfaction

See attached Letter of Approval from Client. Plus we have been retained and currently working on further similar developments being tailor made for certain stores nationwide.

Brother Marcus – Spitalfields

TAG Catering Equipment UK Ltd

Brother Marcus is a Mediterranean-inspired restaurant with existing locations in Angel and Balham, London. By their own confession, it was time to “grow-up” and open their largest restaurant to-date. The chosen location was Spitalfields Market, London.

Founded by three twenty-something friends, it is said when they opened their first café in Balham on such a small budget, they made their own furniture and argued over buying another box of screws. Fast-forward to 2019 and the founders were ready to take the next step, but with no investment, it would be a budget-conscious move.

TAG were briefed to create a more mature restaurant experience for their customers and a space that would be just as at home serving their famous brunch as well as evening meals and their new sharing
plates. The brief included:

• Create a sense of theatre with cooking in the main restaurant dining space;
• Optimise the small back-of-house space to create a preparation kitchen;
• Provide a space-efficient bar that would serve anything from flat-whites to cocktails;
• Utilise existing restaurant infrastructure, wherever possible;
• Re-use existing catering equipment where possible;
• Provide a high calibre design within their tight budget;
• Ideas/possibilities for further revenue streams.

Client Satisfaction

Tasos Gaitanos, co-owner at Brother Marcus commented:

“The opening of the Spitalfields restaurant was a real leap of faith for Brother Marcus. It was exciting, ambitious and daunting taking on such a large space compared to our previous locations.

“We set TAG quite an interesting brief to create a one-of-a-kind dining experience, on a modest budget, re-using equipment and the existing site layout where possible, but also keeping the ethos of Brother Marcus at its heart.

“TAG responded extremely well, we could not be happier with the design, and flexibility they showed to help us achieve the final result. Their wealth of ideas and small details such as the chef’s table in front of the pizza oven has made a real difference to the experience and didn’t impact the budget.

“We thank Tyron and the team at TAG for helping Brother Marcus come of age and realise our biggest opening to-date in Spitalfields!”.

Freemasons “Mr Smith’s”

CHR Foodservice Equipment Ltd

In 2011 , CHR worked with Chef owner Steven Smith to help create a new kitchen, ripping up the old gas kitchen and replacing with a very energy efficient sustainable solution. The project provided Steven and the team at Freemasons a kitchen that would help them deliver a consistent product, and propel Freemasons to become one of the best pubs in the UK.

In January 2019 Steven chatted to our Paul Neville about his dreams to push Freemasons on; Steven was imagining “Mr Smith’s”. An idea to turn one of the best pubs in to the UK to one of the best pubs in the world.
The new development would see Freemasons invest in its new luxury bedrooms and create one of the first pub kitchen chef tables in the UK to deliver a whole new experience in fine dining.

The brief was to design and deliver a world class kitchen environment that would allow various revenue opportunities for the business while allowing the existing business to continue to grow and develop in to one of the best pubs in the world.

• Strip out of the existing bespoke kitchen;
• Re-modelling of bespoke items delivered in 2011, service and re-install as part of the refit space;
• Extension and modernisation of the ventilation system;
• Introduction of a new “Mr Smith’s“ open kitchen table and chef’s bench;
• New stills and dishwash area;
• Utilisation of equipment to form a temporary kitchen space to keep the business running throughout the refurbishment

Client Satisfaction

“Firstly, I’d like to express our thanks for all the support you have given us in our recent new kitchen here at Freemasons at Wiswell, we would be absolutely delighted to support your entry into the ceda awards.

“Mr Smith’s is a forward-thinking, progressive kitchen space that has allowed us to develop a new offering (allowing us to reach out to a new demographic), and revenue stream for the business, while retaining and extending our existing offer at Freemasons itself.

“The support we have had from the team at CHR spans over a decade, and your knowledge, commitment and delivery in supporting our vision has been quite simply invaluable.

“It’s been a tremendous six months at the pub since we opened up our new space. The most heard expression when our guests arrive here at Mr Smith’s is wow. And that’s how we feel about the environment in which you helped us create. There’s simply nothing else like it in the North West, which gives us that vital point of difference and creates numerous reasons why people should visit us – whether it’s for a cooking lesson, a tasting menu or a celebratory meal in Mr Smith’s – we now have a rich and diverse offering which appeals to many.

“With that, we look forward to supporting your entry into your industry awards and extend this offer to any potential clients you have who wish to visit our fantastic new facility and see the impact it’s had on our business.”

– Steven Smith, Managing Director/Chef, Freemasons at Wiswell

The Cottage @ Fulham FC

Caterware Ltd

To work with Client Design Team consisting of Project Manager, Architect, Interior Designer, etc in order to provide an Open Kitchen & Ventilation Scheme within the conversion of the Iconic ‘Craven Cottage’ into a High End Luxury Hospitality Venue, within this historic and traditional Football Stadium.

Existing large Stand at one side of the stadium was being knocked down to create the new Riverside Stand & Pier Development over a period of the next two years, and The Club needed to have another high quality hospitality venue up and running to be able to relocate existing Hospitality customers whilst this was being done.

This was a Grade II listed building where we could not make any external changes and everything had to be approved by English Heritage. The area had no existing Extract/Ventilation and a complete ‘fume free’ system would need to be designed and installed.

Client and English Heritage required full consideration of low energy consumption, air extract qualities and as green as possible installation.

Kitchen needed to be:

• Fully viewable from Dining & Hospitality Areas and to ‘blend’ in to the Venue space;
• Able to provide pre, cooking and wash up facilities for up to 50 covers of Fine Dining or up to 100 person Bowl Buffet;
• Meet the visual approvals from the Interior Designer.

Client Satisfaction

No complaints from anyone. Designed, Supplied, Installed within required tight time frame and end result has achieved everything the Client wanted it to do.

Also invited us to a full food and drinks inclusive party, 3 months after completion to celebrate the success of the Venue and thank us for the work we had done. We are now talking to them about many future developments within the Stadium.

Aimee Mckenzie, Operations & Venue Director, Fulham Football Club said:

“We engaged with Caterware to discuss the potential of creating a high end, exclusive fine dining match day and events facility within the existing iconic ‘Craven Cottage’ building. This building had never been used previously as a ‘Professional Foodservice’ area, and we were well aware that this process would provide certain challenges due to the building age, space constraints and Grade II listed building status.

“Also, the fact that we were demolishing the existing Riverside Stand in order to make way for our new ‘Fulham Pier’ project, meant that it was essential that this facility was to open for the first match of the 2019/2020 season, and that was not too far away.

“From the very start, we found their enthusiasm, dedication and proven experience of similar projects, was a wonderful asset to all our internal and external partners brought in to assist our developments in this area. They became a valuable part of this project, working together with our Consultants, internal Design and Project Teams and Contractors.

“The project was duly completed on time and within budget. The finished result is everything we had hoped for. It was noticed that Caterware had fully understood the brief and professionally delivered what we were looking for with care, customer service and attention to detail at the very heart of everything they did.

“Since this facility has become operational, we have received fantastic reviews and comments from all manner of UK and International visitors and guests, from inside and outside of the football world.

“We wish them all the best in terms of their ceda Awards entry, which has our full backing.”