Selected Archives
Selected stories 2011-2021
KSLA-TV in Shreveport has reported that contract negotiations resumed Friday morning for Libbey Glass union workers of the local plant after members voted down a tentative contract agreement Thursday night.
Thursday evening, union members voted on the tentative contract agreement that included better pay and pension contributions, but union members early Friday morning decided they would reject the company's final offer. Back on Thursday, December 15th union members and the company negotiated the first deal and set a vote date. No word on why union members rejected the tentative contract; however, negotiations began again at 10 a.m. Friday morning. These negotiations come after Libbey had agreed earlier in June of this year to make major reinvestments of approximately $9MM to modernize the Shreveport plant. At the time, Louisiana Economic Development announced the upgrade would involve a the renovation of a glass-making furnace and the purchase of related equipment at the 525,000-square-foot facility. LED estimated Libbey will produce $60 million in state tax revenue and $16.9 million in local taxes over the next 10 years. We recently did a short story and discussed how much we liked the little "surprise" that you get when you use cloches and how they make more of a "presentation" to the dining guest. Well, a reader sent us this image of Chicago's Ria Restaurant's Danny Grant and darned if we don't see Chef Grant's cloches in the background. With Grant being recently describe as an "amuse-bouche master" we shouldn't be surprised...we might even call him a "cloche master". Chef Danny Grant's use of great tabletop pieces may be one of the reasons that Ria was awarded two stars by the Michelin folks recently. We've said it before, but it is worth repeating. Yes, we understand the practical implications of using tabletop accessories like cloches, tiny sauce boats, etc.....we just think that diners - at all levels - appreciate the attention to detail. Elevating and enhancing the dining experience from BBQ to fine dining should be what it's all about. Of course, earning two stars might also have something to do with his "to die for" cuisine like his beuatifully plated lobster below. We think we can also see a thin platinum line at the plate's edge to match up the finial on the cloches. Well done, Chef. Well done. To learn more about Ria Restaurant or Chef Danny Grant - or better yet, to make a reservation, go here: http://www.riarestaurantchicago.com/restaurant.html
From NYEater website, it comes that world leader in restaurant design Adam Tihany is again teaming up with restaurateur Sirio Maccioni for another Sirio Ristorante in New York City.
According to the site: "Today Flo Fab confirms the months of rumors that Le Cirque patriarch Sirio Maccioni is taking over the space of closing British import Le Caprice. Maccioni will open Sirio, a Tuscan restaurant that will be far less formal than Le Cirque, in late spring. Chef Filippo Gozzoli, who comes from the Park Hyatt in Milan, will oversee the menu, which will also include pizza, and Adam Tihany will do the design. Le Caprice will not close until the end of March, and the owners still purportedly plan on relocating, so make sure to book up those primo resys before it's too late." Adam has designed many of the world’s great restaurants and hotel projects including Jean Georges, Le Cirque 2000, Per Se and Daniel in New York, Bouchon, One&Only Cape Town Resort, Mandarin Oriental Las Vegas, and many others. Tihany is also well known for his lighting, dinnerware, and cigar ashtray designs for well known brands such as Villeroy and Boch, Christofle, and Schonwald Porcelain. With all the activity surrounding being acquired by Monomoy Capital Partners, you would think that the good folks at Oneida Ltd. might be a little preoccupied with getting to know their new sister company, Anchor Hocking. On the contrary, Oneida, showing that they are still completely focused on the foodservice marketplace, has just announced four new tableware designs targeting luxury, fine and casual dining. The new patterns expand on their current product portfolio and make fine compliments to the Anchor lines of glassware. “We’re especially excited about the visual and tactile elements of these designs and of their ability to enhance the dining experience”, stated Paul Gebhardt, SR VP Design and Advertising at Oneida. First up is a new addition to Oneida’s luxury dining lineup. “SURREY”, a timeless and contemporary design, joins their Wedgwood Collection. SURREY'S warm white “Maxadura” body works well as a canvas for chef’s creations. With generous plating surfaces, and a mid-sized rim, SURREY frames and presents food well. Both its color and its shape make SURREY adaptable for many contemporary menus. SURREY carries a limited 5-year no-chip warranty. Next is “CIRCA”, an addition to Oneida’s fine dining dinnerware that is both dramatic and revealing. This new design from the Sant Andrea Collection in fine porcelain details its center wells with a raised bezel, creating a visual theater and enhancing the dining experience. With an appealing variety of shapes that offer chefs exciting stylistic opportunities, CIRCA brings fresh and fascinating ways of staging your presentation. CIRCA also features a high-fire scratch and mark resistant glaze that carries a limited 3-year no-chip warranty. Oneida’s new product introductions aren’t limited to dinnerware. Known always as a leader in flatware, Oneida continues to lead with its introduction of two new patterns – "ATLAS" and "ACCLIVITY". ATLAS flatware captures the creative trend of texture as pattern. With clean tailored lines in heavyweight stainless, Atlas is a winner. Excellent feel in the hand and lux-finishing add to its unique flair and classic appeal. ATLAS stainless speaks to originality and superior design. Meanwhile, ACCLIVITY is clean, modern and sculptural. Showcasing both form and function, ACCLIVITY has a recessed center panel in the center of each handle that pools with light from a super-bright mirror finish. Modernist in inspiration, the teardrop handle is both visually understated and tactile. A delicate convex element at the base of each bowl adds further dimension to the clean aesthetic. Oneida Ltd. is one of the world’s largest designers and sellers of stainless steel and silverplated flatware for the consumer and foodservice industries. It is also the largest supplier of dinnerware to the foodservice industry in North America. The company originated in the mid-nineteenth century and today the Oneida brand is one of the most recognize tabletop brands in the world. Driven by devotion to design, Oneida prides itself on the finest quality products and modern, decorative and classic tableware collections. To see the entire collection of Oneida tabletop products, go here: http://foodservice.oneida.com/
Fineline Settings.......if you liked their champagne flutes, you'll love their bowls!
To check out the entire line from Fineline Settings, go here: http://www.finelinesettings.com/ According to The Moscow Times, glassware producer ARC International Group has begun a multimillion-dollar renovation and modernization of Opytny Steklony Zavod, OSZ, glassware factory in the Vladimir region. The French manufacturing group purchased a majority share in OSZ, located in Gus-Khrustalny, the traditional center of Russian glassware production, at the end of October.
After a process of modernization, the factory, 300 kilometers from Moscow, will have new glass production lines and will be able to produce not only ARC International Group's glassware, but that of Luminarc and Arcoroc. The plant currently employs 1,200 people and has two sodium-calcium glass ovens. "Tens of millions of euros," will be invested in the modernization, the company said. Chairman of the Board of ARC International Guillaume de Fougieres said, "our goal is to win market share." With its expansion into Russia, the company has also appointed a new chief executive, Francois Bonneville, for Russia and Eastern Europe. ARC International said it already has a 32 percent market share of the glassware market in Russia and Eastern Europe. It estimates the sector's annual growth will be about 15 percent. Now....do you have to be naughty - or nice....to find some of Crucial Detail's LANDSCAPE collection under your tree?
Why risk it? Just call Steelite - they've got them. “We take pride in creating forms that stimulate every sense. We research the experience of dining, we take time to understand perceptions, and we study human responses to our designs. We don't simply design cutlery, we design sensory forms” - William Welch, Studio William flatware Not selling forks. Not knives. Not even spoons. They're selling "sensory forms". Nice. We like that.
Brand positioning, folks. Brand positioning. Recently, Ann Bagel Storck from Hotels Magazine sat down with Executive Chef Michelle Weaver of the Charleston Grill in Charleston, SC to discuss hotel dining trends. Michelle Weaver has spent the past three years as executive chef at Charleston Grill, the signature restaurant at the 440-room Charleston Place in Charleston, South Carolina. The restaurant has garnered honors including the AAA Four-Diamond award and Distinguished Restaurants of North America Award, and with an average check of US$60 without liquor, the 120-seat, dinner-only venue is not inexpensive. Nevertheless, Weaver has found ways to appeal to a broad range of hotel guests — not to mention a healthy percentage of locals — with revamped menus and personal touches. She recently spoke with HOTELS about some of her best strategies as well as her most exciting plans for 2012.
HOTELS: How would you sum up what characterizes F&B at Charleston Grill? Michelle Weaver: We really have the perfect package. We have great-quality products for food and people that are passionate and care about what they’re doing to prepare them, and then we have these great servers, and it’s a relaxed atmosphere. It’s not stuffy even though it’s a 4-star restaurant. You don’t feel like you should have to whisper. You can relax and be taken care of. It’s the entire package. We strive to make it a magical experience — not just a place to go have dinner. HOTELS: What would you identify on the food side as highlights of that perfect package? Weaver: A few years ago we redid the dining room, to update the look. We wanted to update our menu to be in the forefront of things again. We came up with four quadrants, four mini-menus. One side has Southern specialties — since we’re in Charleston, tourists want to have something Southern while they’re there. We also have a cosmopolitan side for our world travelers; you could find anything from south Indian curries to sashimi to ceviches, all these beautiful world flavors that we have. For the business traveler, [we have a pure menu with things like] just a simple, beautiful piece of steak. We also have lush — foie gras, caviar and these things. Within those four mini menus, there’s something for everybody. It’s almost like being four restaurants. Being a hotel restaurant, it’s a different animal than an independent restaurant. You have a lot of people to please and a lot of targets to try to hit. Within the hotel we’ve got business travelers, luxury travelers, tourists in town, and we’ve got a great local following. To try to appease everybody and give them things they’re all looking for without it being a big mess, we played it out like this, and people love it. HOTELS: Approximately what percentage of your restaurant patrons are locals versus hotel guests? How important is local business to you, and what are some ways you’ve tried to attract it? Weaver: At any point during a night, I’d say it would be 40% to 60% locals, probably closer to an average of 50% on a regular basis. We have a locals appreciation card, so to speak, a loyalty card. They get a percentage off, and they can build other incentives as they use it. We have a big farm-to-table movement [in Charleston]. We’re not a farm-to-table-driven restaurant, but we have great farmers and fishermen that take great care of us, and for our local clientele, that means a lot to them. HOTELS: How is what you offer in F&B at Charleston Grill both similar to and different from what is available in the broader Charleston restaurant landscape? Weaver: We combine a lot of things to [reflect] a little bit of everybody instead of just one thing, which I think gives us more diversity. Because we are supported with the hotel, that gives us more ability and power to be able to get fresh lobster, caviar, all those things that a small independent restaurant really can’t afford to put on their menu. With that backing, it enables us to do the best job with the best products. HOTELS: What are some of the most noteworthy broad hotel F&B trends you’ve observed recently, and how do your offerings reflect — or differ from — them? Weaver: Hotel restaurants seem to have a stigma. I think little by little as big names take over hotel restaurants, people want to go there. I think that stigma’s pulling away a little bit, which is great. Our hotel belongs to Orient-Express, and I think one of the best things that they allow all of us to do is that each property is left to be itself. They want the character of the community [the hotel is] in [to be reflected]. They want the diversity of flavors on their menus. They’re not telling us this is your standard menu. Each hotel and each restaurant has its own character, its own life, its own soul, which I think it wonderful. A lot of hotel groups have a standard corporate menu, but I’m seeing more and more smaller boutique hotels especially have more individual restaurants. Each of them has a different name, they have different flavors, some are using farm-to-table, some are using molecular gastronomy — that’s nice. It takes that stigma away from the hotel restaurant. We really don’t focus much on trends. Those come and go. We look at ourselves and say, what can we do to make our guest experience better? Coming up with little things like putting a card — handwritten by the staff — on the table because we know they’re celebrating their anniversary or their birthday or printing up the tasting menu they had so they have something to take with them — little moments to make that magic come together. HOTELS: What are some of the most exciting plans you have for 2012? Weaver: We’re working on a few events we’re really excited about. I’ve started what I call “Veg Stock.” It’s a vegetarian wine dinner. We do it in the summertime around the anniversary of Woodstock, and it just features all my great local farmers, and it’s a way to say thank you to all our vegetarian clientele. It grew into a two-day event last year, and we may have to do three days next year. To put vegetables at the center of the plate and then pair wines with it is a challenge for me, which I love, and our guests love it. We have people come who aren’t even vegetarian because they know it’s going to be a fun event. We’re going to do a game dinner. It will probably be next fall or winter — all game and big red wines. We started getting teased because of Veg Stock. We had guests say, what about us carnivores? HOTELS: What hot trends do you expect to emerge in F&B in the overall hotel industry in the coming year? Weaver: That’s hard to say because I don’t focus too much on trends. We just focus on how we can make ourselves better. We stay involved in our community with charity events and speaking to local clubs about our local farmers and sustainable seafood and those kinds of things. I would love to see more chefs and hotels be more involved in the communities they’re in. That’s just my wish. HOTELS Magazine is the world's leading publication covering the global lodging industry. Via Motif creates distinctive collections of interior design accessories that enhance the décor and the experience of the hotel guest. Found in upscale hotels and restaurants around the world, Via Motif's product lines are distinguished by their inventive use of materials, clean design, and exquisite attention to detail.
With many hospitality segments looking to re-focus on F&B for both revenue and profit, providing unique guest dining experiences in room service, poolside, and other non-restaurant settings becomes increasingly important. Properties looking to elevate their dining in the venues might want to look to creative companies such as Via Motif International to find unique upscale accessory items such as placemats, votive holders, trays, and check presenters. Via Motif’s constantly evolving collections include stylish accessories for the bedside, bath, table and desk, as well as small furnishings and lighting. With offices on three continents, Via Motif's design, manufacturing, and sales teams work collaboratively on textiles, production techniques, and stunning new product collections that convey Via Motif's distinctive vision of elegant simplicity. By combining state-of-the art design technology with the heritage of handcrafted artistry, Via Motif has risen to prominence as a trusted design and manufacturing resource for a growing list of prestigious hotels, resorts, spas, and restaurants. For the past 20 years, Via Motif has worked diligently to retain the basic principles of classic form, exquisite textiles, and outstanding quality. This Miami-based company has a variety of clean, classic designs that work in nearly all design formats, with items that offer a wide range of uses. As operators look for ways to make the dining experience in their property memorable for their guests, Via Motif's well-designed collections offer an easy choice for elevating dining from simple in-room tea or coffee to full room-service dining. In addition to their signature collections, Via Motif also collaborates with clients around the world to create beautiful customized collections the reflect a reverence for nature and an appreciation for traditional craftsmanship. To view the entire range of Via Motif's collections, including their bath collections, go here: http://www.viamotif.com/
|
We support the
Shouldn't you?
Ment'or Inspiring Culinary Excellence Archives
November 2021
Categories
All
|