All change lakeside On 1st March, Wyboston Lakes’ AA Rosette winning Waterfront Brasserie re-opened as the Waterfront Restaurant and Bar after an intensive two-month rebuild and refurbishment. An integral part of the three-star Wyboston Lakes Hotel, the newly-extended restaurant will continue to serve an eclectic mix of meals, but has added a day-long ‘easy eating’ bar menu, a new daily lunch package and daily-changing specials to complement the à la carte menu. The new menus, which will change quarterly, and the extra emphasis on casual dining reflect an increase in trade at the hotel, one of three different venues on the Wyboston Lakes site. The 103-bedroom hotel has three large conference suites, while the 120-bedroom Robinson Executive Centre focuses more on large conferences and training events and the 183-bedroom Willows Centre caters for longer, more specialist training events. Each venue has dedicated delegate dining rooms, capable of feeding 200-300 people in each. The industry-wide decline in conference and training business has been successfully offset at Wyboston Lakes by the growth in hotel business over two consecutive years. It is not unusual for half to two-thirds of the bedrooms at Wyboston lakes Hotel to be occupied by dinner, bed and breakfast guests rather than conference delegates. Executive Chef Fergus Martin said: “Some of our guests might want to stay in all day, but may not want to eat in the same place all the time, which is why we introduced the new casual dining areas in the lounge, which also allows conference guests from the other venues on-site to come over to the Waterfront and have a light meal or afternoon tea.” Catering at Wyboston Lakes has, subsequently, become more diverse, and Fergus makes no bones about admitting that, on occasions, he turns to pre-prepared products to assist in meeting the challenges posed by such a variety of outlets. As team captain of the Craft Guild of Chefs Culinary Academy, responsible for leading talented chefs at high profile competitions such as the Culinary World Cup and Hotelympia, the challenge for Fergus was to find products that met his own high standards. “Time can be of the essence on occasions, and it makes sense to use time and talent sensibly,” he said. “The addition of our new, all-day menu, ever-changing specials and high-profile evening dining have made things even harder to juggle.” Essential one stop shop Stocks and sauces are the backbone of any kitchen operation, adding depth and flavour to dishes, but, as every chef knows, making them from scratch is a time consuming process, especially if the catering operation is as large as Wyboston Lakes. To ease this pressure, without compromising on quality, Fergus, who as a young chef completed stages with the Roux brothers and whose rôles have included Technical Chef Instructor at the Army School of Catering, Aldershot, Head Chef at the Royal Berkshire Racquets and Health Club and lecturer at Thames Valley University, relies on Essential Cuisine products as a key building block in his five kitchens. From Signature Beef Jus to No 1 Savoury Gravy, Fergus uses Essential Cuisine as a one-stop shop for solutions for all aspects of the operation. “When you’re making a red wine sauce, Signature Beef Jus is very convenient and easy to use. There are other products out there, but I haven’t found anything else to match it. You end up with a genuinely good product which allows us to make more dishes per day, keeping both customers and chefs happy. “We don’t use it neat as a finished product, but it’s the perfect way to enhance a sauce. Take orange sauce for duck, for example – pan fry a breast, add Cointreau and orange juice, then add the jus, reduce it down and it’s ready to go. You get the flavour from the duck, the orange juice and the Cointreau, but the jus has also got good flavour of its own. We just like to use it in our own way.” Fergus also uses No 1 Savoury Gravy as a useful aid to meet the growing demand for vegetarian options in the conference dining areas. “We aim now to cater for 20-25 percent vegetarian choice,” he said. “It’s not that we are seeing more dedicated vegetarians, just that more people are opting to eat that way by choice, believing it to be more healthy. “No 1 Savoury Gravy is excellent. To make a really good veggie gravy from scratch takes a long time, but this is convenient and has great depth. It also has a very fresh flavour, and looks natural, unlike some products which give an artificial appearance. An added bonus is that it’s gluten-free, which is really useful for us as we are seeing more and more clients with special dietary requirements. Across the board Fergus also uses the Essential Cuisine glace range. From vegetable mirepoix glace to enhance sauces and add flavour to soups, 300-400 portions of which are made fresh daily, through to lobster glace to enhance a seafood chowder. For dishes such as fillet of venison, Fergus uses a combination of products – Signature Beef Jus as a base, with a spoonful of game glace to enhanced and finish the sauce. “Using Essential Cuisine products does not mean compromising, as some chefs might think. The products are excellent and have a place both in planned production and for those short-notice situations where extra customers appear out of the blue.” A bonus for Fergus is the fact that Essential Cuisine, which sponsors the Craft Guild of Chefs Culinary Academy as part of its commitment to developing culinary skills, is run by Dorchester-trained chef Nigel Crane. “The whole company is very chef like, and aimed at the chef”, he said. “You ring some of the recognised brands and you get a sales person. You ring Essential and you get a chef who can tell you what you can do with a particular product. “By working closely together in this way, I’ve found the best solutions for each of the concepts here. It’s great to find a range that covers so many bases without compromising on quality. Many suppliers sell only glaces or gravy, but with Essential you get the whole range”.
