While familiar brands like Bosch, Hotpoint and Neff are the choice of budding chefs around the world for their domestic kitchens, there’s another name that dominates the commercial oven market to the extent that it is used in the same way that Hoover became the default moniker for vacuum cleaners.
Until recently, even avid home cooks had little exposure to the kind of specialist appliances found in professional kitchens and catering facilities. TV chefs usually cooked in a kitchen that resembled what their viewers had at home (except with every possible ingredient and utensil to hand), and glimpses into restaurant kitchens or busy canteens provide only a fleeting chance to appreciate the industrial looking ovens glowing within.
Now, cooking thoroughly permeates entertainment in almost all media, with an explosion in TV programmes, films and literature finding a market with food loving fans everywhere. From Boiling Point to The Bear, kitchens have provided the stage for some of the most popular dramas and documentaries of the last 20 years, exploring countless themes in the high pressure setting of a busy kitchen. More observant viewers might have noticed that one distinctly recognisable type of oven has featured heavily in the background of these shows.
With their unique vertical control panels, windowed doors revealing shelves of gleaming chrome racks, and compact, industrial design and finish, Rational’s combination ovens have carried their own unique style and distinctive features through 50 years of innovation and variation. These appliances mean business when it comes to serious cooking. While they boast a higher price tag and won’t be found in the home unless you’re living the celebrity lifestyle of a Beckham or a Kardashian, they’re less Lamborghini and more Land Rover. Their appearance makes them instantly recognisable, but it’s what’s hidden on the inside that has won them a place in the most demanding kitchen environments, where volume and consistency without sacrificing even slightly on quality are core requirements.
So, what are the killer features that allow not just chefs, but also the specialist teams of operators in high-volume catering, to perform literal kitchen miracles; serving up not just a table of food but sometimes hundreds, even thousands of top notch individual meals with perfect consistency every time?
Ian Leadbetter, National Corporate Chef for Rational UK, is pretty clear on his favourite features, and with thousands of training sessions with aspiring chefs across the UK under his belt, he’s well placed to judge.
“There’s a lot that your home oven has learned from commercial appliances, but the features get watered down considerably,”
said Ian.
“Your oven at home might claim to clean itself, but in practice, this usually means a high temperature setting that bakes the dirt until it can be easily (and manually) removed. Rational’s iCare System knows exactly how clean or dirty your oven is and uses a cartridge-based cleaning system with safe chemicals at just the right dose for a fully hygienic clean that leaves your oven looking brand new every time. All completely automated.
“Some ovens have a temperature probe, so you can select a programme that cooks a product to a particular temperature, which is okay, but it’s a set process, whereas the intelligent Rational oven uses Processes instead of Programmes. Everything is constantly monitored and adjusted; time, temperature, moisture – it’s all controlled centrally.”
There are a lot of features to talk about: fresh, hygienic steam directly from the main water supply, the higher temperatures you can reach, it’s all useful, but the thing that nothing in your own kitchen is likely to reproduce for a long, long time is iProductionManager, a combination of software smarts and raw cooking power. Ian describes how he can cook sausages, bacon, tomato, hash browns, fried egg, and even toast all in the same combination oven, all at the same time, all cooking with differing monitored processes and all finishing in perfect unison in six minutes. A full English at the press of a button, and perfect every time.
“It’s kind of ridiculous, really, and anyone can pull that off, you don’t need any level of expertise,”
said Ian.
You can see why they’re the go-to option for any business needing to deliver high volume and high quality. But unfortunately, if you’re salivating at the thought of serving up a perfect five-course dinner to your family without lifting a finger, you could have a while to wait.
Rational has no intention of moving into the domestic oven market any time soon, but like other industries, technology from the most demanding and extreme environments does eventually trickle through to domestic appliances. Rational’s incredible tech remains a promise of things to come for anyone without the bank balance to fit out their kitchen like a Michelin star restaurant.
For information call 01582 480388, or visit www.rational-online.com