1. Casa de Campo new kitchen Page 1 of 3
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Nerve Center Hotel F&B TV
Innovative central kitchen improves quality and reduces labor.
By Janice Cha
Hot Rock Soup: Inspired action station
heats things up at Hilton Minneapolis.
Casa de Campo’s new main kitchen’s role is to prep all food used at all resort and resort-related dining venues, a
move that has reduced food waste significantly. About 40 percent of the kitchen’s 10,760-square-foot area is
dedicated to storage; 30 percent of the space is used for food prep and 30 percent for banquet cooking.
When your resort kitchen is responsible for feeding the
equivalent of a small town, it pays to centralize. That was the
conclusion of Phillip Bucher when he signed on nearly four years
ago as F&B director for Casa de Campo, the largest resort in the
Dominican Republic.
Casa de Campo’s foodservice situation at the time was
fragmented, to say the least. A banquet kitchen handled meals for
resort events and the dining needs of up to 2,000 private villas, as
well as those of the local marina and airport. At the same time,
After initial cleaning, raw product is individual kitchens at the resort’s nearly 15 restaurants cleaned,
brought to “labs” for full cleaning and prepped, and cooked food daily. Casa de Campo employed nearly
prep work. Continuing the separation 600 foodservice employees to keep it all going.
of product, each food category—
proteins, vegetables and fruits, cheese,
pastry, salads, etc.—has its own Shortly after Bucher’s arrival, the resort’s owners issued a
processing area. Other areas include challenge to the foodservice department: to become a “leading
the hot kitchen, banquet equipment hotel of the world,” says Bucher, who has directed foodservice
storage, ice factory, and staff kitchen. operations at resorts and hotels in seven countries over the past
12 years.
Between Casa de Campo’s new goals and the fragmented food
production system on which the resort relied, “it was short work
to persuade the owners to invest in a central kitchen operation,”
Bucher adds.
http://www.hotelfandb.com/biol/jul-aug2011-casa-de-campo-new-kitchen.asp 7/14/2011

2. Casa de Campo new kitchen Page 2 of 3
PREPPING AND COOKING TO INVENTORY
Some $12 million and three years later, Casa de Campo’s new
main kitchen is cranking on all cylinders. Its main role is to prep
all food used at all resort and resort-related dining venues, a move
that has reduced food waste significantly.
Sous vide—in which fresh ingredients are vacuum-packed in
pouches, chilled for storage, and later cooked before service—
allows Casa de Campo to maintain an inventory of about 2,500
covers at all times while improving efficiency for the satellite
kitchens.
“You never know when a big yacht or airplane will arrive or when
villa owners will decide they want to borrow some of our chefs to
prepare dinner for a group,” Bucher says. He points to last
December, shortly after the main kitchen’s opening, as an
example. “On New Year’s Eve, we hosted more than 25 banquets
simultaneously across the property.”
“Now that we’re prepping and cooking to inventory rather than to
order, our staff can finish a week’s worth of food production in
three days,” Bucher says.
The greater efficiency of Casa de Campo’s centralized production
has created a big side benefit in labor costs. The resort’s
foodservice staff is now about 50 percent fewer than three years
earlier, much of that thanks to attrition over the three years that
the kitchen was in its planning and building stages.
KITCHEN TOUR
About 40 percent of the kitchen’s 10,760-square-foot area is
dedicated to storage (chilled and dry); 30 percent of the space is
used for food prep and 30 percent for banquet cooking.
The kitchen, designed by Bucher along with foodservice kitchen
consultant José Román of José Román Consulting and the resort
company’s team of architects and engineers, maintains a
continuous “cold chain.” From loading dock to kitchen, the
temperature is set at about 64°F (or lower) to offset the island’s
heat, which averages about 90°F from May to October.
Separation by food type is another basic element of the resort’s
food safety processes. “We’ve got eight big freezers, a wine cellar,
Casa de Campo’s various restaurants
receive pre-cleaned, measured, and a cooler dedicated to eggs alone that holds up to 5,000 eggs,”
chopped food product from the central Bucher says.
kitchen and need only to open
packages, retherm or cook the food, After an initial cleaning, raw product is brought to “labs” for full
and plate it for serving. cleaning and prep work. Continuing the separation of product,
each food category has its own processing area. Protein prep
covers three rooms, one each for cleaning, prepping, and
vacuumpacking meat, poultry, fish, and seafood into pre-
portioned, cook-ready packets. Each area has a freezer in which to
store vacuum-packed raw product.
Vegetables and fruits go to a separate area, where produce is
further washed, peeled, chopped, and then vacuum-packed.
Cheese, with its higher risk of cross-contamination, also has its
own dedicated prep area.
Other prep areas specialize in pastry, bakery, and cold kitchen for
salads. Additional kitchen areas include the hot kitchen with its
lineup of cooking equipment, banquet equipment storage, ice
factory, and staff kitchen, plus adjacent staff dining area (with
seating for 800).
The resort’s various restaurants—or “satellite kitchens,” as Bucher
says—receive the pre-cleaned, measured, chopped food product
and now need only to open packages, retherm or cook the food, Associations & Affiliations
and plate it.
LOOKING AHEAD
Casa de Campo’s investment in the main kitchen will pay off in
the short term, thanks to labor reduction, but also in the long
term. “We’re more efficient now—so overall foodservice
department costs have dropped by about 30 percent over the past
two years,” Bucher says. “And now we have room to add new
restaurants.”
Janice Cha has covered foodservice for 13 years, focusing on
kitchen equipment for the past eight years.
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