Right in the Hearth of It All

Dan Bendall

Illustration Source: Foodstrategy

Display kitchens are a trend that is here to stay — and not just in glitzy restaurants. Customers enjoy seeing skilled chefs at work and like knowing where their food is coming from. Nothing offers this experience more effectively than an open kitchen, and hearth ovens are a proven way to deliver this in an onsite environment.

Some call these “pizza ovens,” but they're much more than that, lending themselves even to breakfast programs where they can be used to make frittatas, oven roasted Potatoes O'Brien Italian, sweet breakfast bread and other items. At dinner, roasted seafood or vegetables from them can be wonderful menu options, cooked fresh and served hot right in front of the customer. [Editor's Note: You can read a menu case study about how one school approached this on p. 18 of this issue.]

While some of these units are wood-fired, most used in onsite operations run on natural gas, both because of increased regulation and the operational challenges of using wood. Typically, gas-fired models employ a flame strip that simulates the look of a wood fire and are built so they look like igloos with a massive stone hearth and fire brick sides.

The bulk of stone and brick is key to the oven's most important feature, its ability to store heat. These ovens are surprisingly energy efficient and their recovery times during high volume are impressive. A well-run operation takes advantage of this “thermal inertia” by maintaining utlization during periods of low demand, scheduling bread baking and similar uses at these times.

Many ovens are round and range in size from about four feet to six or more feet in diameter, yielding 12 to 30 square feet of cooking surface. Rectangular models are also available, as are smaller ovens, for lower volume operations. The ovens' relatively large size and strong visual presence help make them a central focus of attention for café customers.

Production Times

Pizzas, flatbreads, and other entrée items can be baked in as little as two or three minutes, but some items may take five to seven minutes, depending on ingredients and density. A nine sq.ft. oven can hold 8-10 typically-sized items at a time. With experience it is possible to bake around 100 average-sized items in an hour.

Basic station components

The figure below and its associated equipment list show the key components of a Hearth Oven Station. It's important to optimize the expected work flow and it helps to consider not only how you expect production sequences to occur initially, but also how they might change in the future.

Work flow

The figure also shows a circular work flow pattern in our prototypical station. The idea is to go from raw product assembly A, to the oven B, to final cutting or prep C, to the serving area D in a circular pattern, without crossing back over the flow. You want the station to be compact, requiring the fewest steps necessary to get the finished product out.

At the same time, you'll want to maintain some clearances, especially in front of the oven. Staff will be using an oven peel to reach deep inside of it and will need space to pull the product out, and then convey the fresh product to a finishing table without creating a hazard for others around them. Try to leave about five feet in front of the oven, but certainly not less than four feet.

Typical process

(A) If a pizza were being produced, the operator would select a cooking platter and ball of dough to flatten and shape, adding ingredients, sauces, and garnishes from the cold pan rail.

(B) The assembled item is moved to the adjacent oven where it cooks quickly under high heat. When done, the item is pulled out and onto an adjacent landing table, (C). There it is cut, garnished and moved to serving dishes or containers before being merchandised at the serving counter(s) (D).

The Components

Dan Bendall ([email protected]) is a principal of FoodStrategy, a Maryland-based consulting firm specializing in planning foodservice facilities. He is a member of Foodservice Consultants Society International.