Cuisine Solutions, which prepares meals using the sous vide technique of cooking vacuum-sealed food in a bag at a precise temperature in a water bath, provides custom-made service to hotel culinary teams, guiding them on how to prepare and manage products.
Looking to revamp its F&B programming, Remington Hotels believed that Cuisine Solutions could be the ideal fit.
“We needed a solution that allowed us to continue to provide high-quality and consistent menu items without the same staffing model that we’ve been used to in the past,” said Richard Garcia, SVP, food & beverage, Remington Hotels. “So, ultimately, Cuisine Solutions helped us develop our core menu platform so that we didn’t have to sacrifice menu size, quality or consistency, despite having less staff.”
Remington started working with Cuisine Solutions about a year ago, and 35 of its hotels are now using Cuisine Solutions products to craft its core and small-plate menus.
“Whether it’s seasonal offerings or supply chain issues, they have been able to support us by not being handcuffed to specific items, and we can still develop our menus at a level that we were able to do when we had more people,” Garcia said. “That’s probably the biggest thing that they’ve allowed us to do with their platform.”
Garcia describes Cuisine Solutions as an extension of a prep kitchen, offering plated protein, sauces and additional components that it can use to create multiple recipes with limited inventory.
Remington is currently implementing these products and services into its core menus, restaurants, event spaces and grab-and-go markets, allowing them to cross-utilize inventory.
“From a service perspective, they’ve really been able to provide us with research and development when it comes to new menus that we’re working on,” Garcia said. “They’ve also really been instrumental in some of our training opportunities. If I am opening a new hotel or rolling out a new menu, they have been extremely supportive by being there with us on the line, working with our chefs to ensure that our team really understands how to get the most use out of their products.”
Along with elevating its F&B offerings and assisting on the training front, Cuisine Solutions has created consistency without sacrificing quality.
“The company has been connected to how we manage this, and we’ve been able to implement the use of this inventory, which has reduced the amount of preparation time that our team needs to be done,” Garcia said. “This essentially increases our productivity because we’re not focused on what Cuisine Solutions is able to provide.”
Despite staffing challenges, Remington is still able to manage its restaurants, banquets and catering. For example, at the Melrose Georgetown Hotel in Washington, DC, the hotel serves a small plates menu using Cuisine Solutions products and can execute luxury dishes with as little as one chef in the kitchen.
However, it’s the management company’s full-service branded hotels that have benefited the most from Cuisine Solutions, Garcia said, by utilizing unique ingredients.
“One of the most unique offerings that we’ve been able to offer is their vegan plant-based Bolognese sauce, and I can tell you that I struggled to put that on the permanent core menu, but I’m happy I did because it’s become one of our top-selling items,” Garcia said. “It’s checking numerous boxes for us. Not only is it supporting our operation, but it’s also allowing us to check the wellness box and the vegan box, and when that particular product is used with a gluten-free pasta, that checks another completely different box.”
Satisfying guests’ expectations and their taste buds has been huge for Remington, especially as food becomes a major driver of travel and tourism.
“Today’s paying guests are millennials and Gen Y, as they make up about 30% of the world’s population, and they contributed about $200 billion in travel in 2019 to our industry, so it’s essential that food and beverage provide the experience that these generations are looking for when they travel,” Garcia said. “Ultimately, they’re willing to pay less on a hotel room and more on the experience, so a strong food and beverage component can help make that happen. It’s actually been supporting our occupancy at our hotels.”
Providing offerings that meet these demands not only help hotels stay relevant in the F&B space, but the wellness space as well.
“We want to get away from calling our restaurants ‘outlets’ because we have some cool and unique bars and restaurants that are great experiences,” Garcia said. “As we focus our energies on driving millennial and Gen Z and Gen Y business, we are featuring some amazing restaurants and bars. In the event space, as opposed to going in the banquet and catering direction, we are throwing some incredible events and focusing on creating an experience at Remington Hotels. That’s going to be the biggest focus we have this year, and Cuisine Solutions can be a big part of that because their inventory allows us to do more with an event than what we would be able to do in a typical situation.”
Remington plans to continue working with Cuisine Solutions, which has kept the company’s costs under control.
“The reality is that we want to continue to do as much business with Cuisine Solutions as we possibly can,” Garcia said. “We’ve got 18 months of a core menu program that has not yet proven its financial success, but it’s proven successful with the increased guest satisfaction scores that we track. It’s improved our ability to retain and recruit people because we’re now offering venues that aren’t limited or they are still interested to cook in and learn. I think it helps us all around, and we want to continue to work with them.”
