Steed Sherriff is the Manager at the Carpenter’s Arms pub, situated on the Edgware Road in London, W1. The Carpenter’s Arms is one from a group of fourteen London based pubs belonging to the Market Taverns pub company.
The Carpenter’s Arms has a reputation for being a popular, friendly local pub. It is probably best known, however, for its great food offering which actually tends to drive the wet sales. Sherriff has been with The Carpenter’s Arms for just ten weeks but in that time has revived its menu which hadn’t been changed in over a year.
Sherriff makes a large proportion of the pub’s food in a fat free fryer. The machine, called Quik n’ Crispy (for obvious reasons) is supplied by leading catering equipment distributor, Valera.
Valera is probably best known as the UK’s sole distributor of market leading Sanyo products – most famous for its professional microwaves of which it supplies eight different models. Valera also distribute combination ovens, the revolutionary Induction Hobs, a range of glass and dishwashers, combisteamers and its own refrigeration range. The Quik n’ Crispy however is ideal in a pub like the Carpenters Arms.
The model is compact and sits nicely behind the bar, front of house at the Carpenter’s Arms. It doesn’t require expensive, bulky vented hood systems nor is there any need for hot oil. Unlike other fryers, the Quik n’ Crispy is both greaseless and smokeless and it is even quite an attractive piece of equipment! Also, because the cooking time is so fast, it makes it ideal to sit front of house, so customers’ hot bar snacks are really hot! It is low cost and high output with the capacity to fry, bake or grill several items at once. It can handle different types of meals because there is no taste transference whatsoever.
Sherriff says: < combo Bits? n ?Chicken and Chinese Indian, frozen our including fryer air hot the in items menu popular most all make We noticeably! dropped sales food time, short that during found we service maintenance went recently It now. years two about pub at Crispy n? Quik had have>Frozen dishes are prepared especially well using the hot air fryer because food is placed in a basket and any wetness evaporates and any debris is collected in the drip tray below. This can be compared to frozen food cooked on an oven tray which retains its wetness when it is being cooked.
Sheriff says;”A huge amount of our customers are local business people who drop in for a quick drink and a bite to eat. The Quik n’ Crispy is great because it actually reduces the cooking time by 75%. It also produces food cooked to perfection because temperature and time are so easy to control. As well as the combos, we also cook chips and onion rings, even sausages and baguettes in the machine; so it does quite a range and gets used a lot!”
Gary MacDonald, Valera’s regional sales manager says: “Anything that is ovenable will work in the Quik n’ Crispy and the fryer works especially well with anything that is breaded or battered. It cooks more cleanly than normal fryers so the food tastes better and it’s healthier for the customer as well as easier to prepare for the pub chef. The Quik n’ Crispy is relatively low priced for such an incredible throughput of food, and without the need for extraction it is small enough to slip into a convenient place front or back of house. It seems like the perfect machine for pub catering”.
