Two restaurants, one kitchen

Nation's Restaurant News, August 26, 1985

Two new walk-ins were added to the five existing units; one exclusively for pastry storage, the other a fruit ripening box held at a constant 55|F.

Since both restaurants boast the use of predominantly fresh produce and meats, the small freezer on the level below the main kitchen provides ample space for the few frozen items. Other features that make the kitchen highly workable are a street level delivery dock and connecting service elevator, located just around the corner from the main walk-ins and the restaurant's butcher shop.

The new design includes space for 26 work stations--a generous number, says Terczak, though he adds that two or three more would help, particularly at the peak of the prep period when the kitchen staffs of both restaurants overlap the most. It's then that the sauciers, working next to the Mexican cooking line, are preparing sauces for both restaurants. There are some 25 different sauces and one soup used daily for the Safari's menu and nine sauces and four soups for Cafe Marimba. Sorbet, pastry and dessert making for the two restaurants also overlap, though the offerings are different for both menus.

Keh and his partner, Ed Schoenfeld, gave Terczak considerable, but not total, leeway in choosing equipment for the kitchen. Giving a chef this much authority might seem to fly in the face of kitchen design wisdom, which holds that chefs are notorious overspenders, but Schoenfield maintains philosophically: "The chef's the one who has to work in the space; he might as well have what he needs.' In total, the kitchen's cost came to $325,000.

Some of the equipment and features that Terczak points out as being particularly "luxurious' but well worth their price include:

The only custom-made, automatic corn tortilla machine found outside California.

A $9,000 self-cleaning sorbetmaking machine capable of freezing 9 qt. of ice cream in 12 minutes. It makes up to 7 gal. a day for the two restaurants and about 30 more per week for the other two Keh restaurants.

Two tilting stock pots--one 40 and one 60 gal.--each with self-cooling water jackets.

An hydrolic tilting brazier, used for a wide variety of tasks--from reducing stocks to making a special braised duck on the Safari menu and a "drunken' chicken braised in tequila and vinegar sauce for Marimba.

Two stone-bottom ovens in the pastry shop for more even heat distribution for pastry and baked goods.

Judging by the way Terczak feels about his kitchen, the payoff of such an elaborate approach to equipment is increased efficiency and overall quality that modern, agreeable and well-equipped surroundings can foster.

"I've seen some of the finest restaurant kitchens in the country from Los Angeles to New York,' says Terczak, "and I dare say ours is the most spacious and efficient in the business.'

Photo: The Safari Grill and Cafe Marimba Kitchen's main cooking line.

Photo: The kitchen's generous design includes space for as many as 26 different work stations.

Photo: Because everything is made fresh in-house, there's also a pastry shop.