Complex, tri-level kitchen; Lewis' Hamlet Gardens pulls it together

Nation's Restaurant News, Feb 24, 1986 by Richard Martin

Because the majority of the total 444 sq. ft. of walk-in refrigeration is on the second floor along with soup-stock-produced prep areas, the Hamlet Gardens kitchen utilizes about 15 cooks under the direction of chev Van Hooten. "That's very heavy--we probably could ahve done this with 10 cooks if we'd had the entire kitchen on one floor," Lewis said. Moreover, extra dishwashing personnel are required just to keep service ware moving up and down the elevator.

However, Lewis noted, given the costly nature of real estate in Westwood Village and the need to maximize valuable main-floor guest seating areas, the multilevel kitchen will actually be more economical in the long run than the one-level alternative. "But not in labor cost," she added.

Although Hamlet Gardens benefited from the Lewises' decades of Hamburger Hamlet planning expertise and prior experiences with two-story kitchens at their Portner's dinnerhouse and Hamlet unit in Washington, D.C., more than a few aspects of their newest venture were unique.

"This is the first time we've done a kitchen on wheels," Marilyn Lewis noted. Although some of her planning associates resisted the notion, "my kitchen designer insisted," she said.

Paul M. Bisno, director of the Santa Monica-based Kitchen Intelligence Agency Inc. (K.I.A.) design firm, explained his insistence. "You pay a few extra hundred dollars per item for special gasline disconnects, stainless steel sides and the wheels themselves," Bisno said, "but by just wheeling the equipment in you can avoid expensive installers and you don't have the cost of forming and pouring the [concrete] curbs you'd build for nonrolling stock."

Moreover, he noted, "Health departments love equipment on wheels." But more important, the designer remarked, is the advantage his clients have of easily replacing appliances should they eventually be deemed inadequate or obsolete. (In fact, Hamlet Gardens' mesquite grill is already a candidate for replacement with a larger unit, Bisno said.)

At Hamlet Gardens, Bisno noted, "Every item under a hood is on wheels."

Just before the restaurant opened in late December, chef Van Hooten entered the picture to fine-tune his storage needs, adding shelves and pan hangers for greater efficiency near the critical saute area.

But although the oyster bar, chicekn rotisserie, pizza oven and bread station of the bar room's exhibition appetizer kitchen take a strain off the main kitchen, the overwhelming early popularity of Hamlet Gardens' menu is making Lewis and Van Hooten's jobs no less difficult.

Because nearly every menu item has developed a strong following, Lewis said, she finds herself unable to rotate sauteed dishes off of the menu as previously planned. Yet, she added, a high level of repeat patronage has forced her to add new sauteed items, such as a crepinette sausage platter and an American bouillabaisse.

Ironically, the strains that come from success may be the biggest logistical hurdle Hamlet Gardens will encounter, Lewis noted: "It's easy to do a menu that doesn't take--you can tear it up and start over. But when you have a menu that does take, your kitchen had better have its act together."