UAB Asgaard Property is a real estate company founded in Vilnius with more than thirty years experience in designing, constructing and investing in modern, multi-use properties including business parks, offices and restaurants.  Their recent collaboration with The Farmers Circle in opening two exciting new restaurant venues lead to some challenging design requirements.

Farmers Circle is a 600 hectare organic farm in the nearby Ukmerge district offering events, conference and experiences has a holistic “farm to fork philosophy” with nature and sustainability as its core values.This was to be sympathetically incorporated into the restaurant concepts – 14 Horses and Nineteen18 in Vilnius Old Town.

The brief

• A total of three kitchens were needed in addition to the bar area.  Ground floor prep kitchen, fine dining kitchen serving “14 Horses” on the first floor and finishing kitchen for the “Nineteen18” restaurant located on the second floor.
• The limited kitchen spaces with irregular walls and corners required carefully considered, custom-made fabrication.
• The cooking islands had to include drop-in appliances that exactly met the customer’s needs and requests, in terms of function and position.

The solution

• For both restaurants, the customer chose the compact and high performance Ambach System 700 product line, while the suite in the ground floor preparation kitchen was designed with Metos equipment, individually constructed on site due to the difficult stairs and narrow passages.
• Due to the same restrictions, the Ambach kitchens were also delivered in individual modules and welded on site by ambach technicians.
• In addition to the Ambach cooking appliances, Metos supplied combination ovens and salamander grills, along with two cold plates positioned above refrigerated tables.
• The design of the kitchen layout began in mid-2019 with supply in May 2020 (works inevitably delayed due to COVID).  The complex installation was completed in two months, opening as scheduled in August 2020.
• The installation of the equipment was carried out by Metos engineers under the close guidance of the Ambach aftersales team. Training on the correct use of the appliances was also followed by the Metos corporate chef.
• The customer was impressed throughout the planning and installation phases of this complex project and totally satisfied with the quality of the end result throughout.

Waldviertlerhof has been a byword for Viennese culture since 1842.
Originally known as ‘Georg-Passecker Steh-Weinhalle’, in 2015 it was extensively renovated through the efforts of the well-known Viennese restauranteurs Alexander and Sebastian Laskowsky.
Nowadays the excellent typical Viennese cuisine bears the signature of chef Stefan Hartl and is served in six different rooms, from the Zirbenstüberl to the Jägerstüberl and the veranda with over 250 places and the garden which can hold a further 200 covers.

The brief

• After more than 30 years of intensive use, the kitchen had to be remodelled and the various preparation areas redesigned to best meet the work requirements.
• The kitchen was originally divided by a wall, later demolished to connect the workstations around the central island and therefore make the most of the space available to staff. For this reason an integral part of the design brief was the need to provide different routes for the two workflows of the team in the kitchen and that in the dining area.
• Additionally, in view of the lack of use over the years of the “Zewirkaum” area, previously given over to game, it was necessary to create a kitchen for the preparations and, at the same time, adapt the store to current hygiene standards.
• There were several problems to manage, including the need to transport the new island through the narrow door of the building.

The solution

• To make best use of the space available and overcome the building’s structural limitations, a made-to-measure solution was needed. This led to the choice of the Ambach System 700 line in the hygiene version mounted on a masonry plinth.
• To allow transport through the entrance door, the new island was delivered dismantled in four parts, late welded together directly on site.
• As well as adapting old furnishings to the existing space, a temporary kitchen was installed to leave the restaurant always open throughout the period of the works.
• The design stage lasted around three months, while the renovation works lasted six weeks.
• The work was carried out with maximum cooperation between the team made up of the client, Hutterer Gastro-Systeme and Ambach.

The new Brussels headquarters of insurance giant AXA is not a classic head office. Set in a light-filled building surrounded by greenery, it’s more reminiscent of a 5-star hotel than a multinational.

The extensive spaces on the ground floor, for shared offices and meeting rooms, make way for a large area with catering services intended not only for employees but also outside guests. They include a cafeteria, delicatessen, pizzeria corner and a grill and boulangerie. For corporate events there’s also a high-end brasserie offering a wonderful view over the gardens of the nearby Royal Palace.

The foodservice is provided thanks to the use of three different kitchens, one for large-scale production, a finishing kitchen and an open kitchen designed ad hoc for the à la carte brasserie menu.

The brief

• AXA needed state-of-the-art kitchens. “Ambach is one of the very few companies in the world able to make them with the 3 mm tops further reinforced with 3 mm of steel. In order to best meet the client’s needs we had no doubts about the choice”, explained Jan Vyverman, general manager of Metos, the Ali Group company chosen by AXA for the impressive project.
• “Secondly, it was important to work with a supplier on the same wavelength as the company and its values. Once again Ambach was found to be the most appropriate choice thanks to the vast focus on the client and the ability to create completely custom-made, ad hoc solutions”, added Vyverman.
• The most complex challenge of this project was the open kitchen. “AXA wanted something radically different from the classic staff canteen”, explained Vyverman.

The solution

• Ambach’s extreme flexibility enabled three custom-made solutions to be created for three completely different kitchens. “The special feature of a company like Ambach is the great ability to supply everything, from the central kitchen islands designed and made to measure for the most demanding of chefs to equipment intended for production on a vast scale such as that of hospitals and canteens”, underlined Vyverman.
• For the kitchen situated in the basement and used for canteen service Metos chose the robust and high-performance Ambach System 900 line. The kitchen is made up of separate areas for preparing hot and cold dishes and is equipped with cold rooms, bratt pans and pressure and induction cookers.
• On the upper level the open kitchen represented a more complex solution. A custom-built block from the Ambach System 700 was designed, with its considerable length of 4.4 metres which perfectly fits the size of the room. “We couldn’t use the standard System 700 block as it had to be 1300 mm deep instead of the standard 1400 mm”, explained the Ambach area manager, Georg Dissertori. For this reason we had to create an extension on the back and a custom-made base unit”.
• Despite the fact the benchmark line was the System 700, the open architecture of Ambach and its great flexibility enabled a plancher from the System 850 line to be installed with larger cooking surfaces, perfect for meeting the high productivity needs of the chefs. The team also wired all the electrical connections for the whole block into a single connection point.
• The smaller finishing kitchen on the first level is from the System 850 Ambach modular line, complete with hygiene joint.
• Given the complexity of the project, the excellent team work by the architects, engineers, design office, general contractor and the subcontractors was crucial for the success of the project. “It was interesting to see that we were all well trained”, recalls Vyverman. “We worked together to achieve a truly excellent result. Everything went very well and, when work had finished, we were all surprised at the result. Often projects look great on paper, but then in fact turn out very different. In this case the exact opposite happened”.

A famous events location in Neu-Isenburg, Hugenottenhalle is also a restaurant very well known throughout Germany and seating up to 1,000 people. Alongside events, festivals, plays, cabarets and fairs, its main room is used also by the Neu-Isenburg town council for meetings and political debates, school and Christmas celebrations.
The Tonino restaurant, located inside the Hugenottenhalle space, has for over 15 years been well known and well-loved for its renowned Italian served up by Antonio Avato, better known as Toni.
Every day, with his team, he prepares dishes for the restaurant’s 200 covers and the catering service for events hosted by Hugenhottenhalle. Whether buffets or gala dinners, the dishes are always fresh and high quality and accompanied by an excellent selection of wines.

The requirement

• The kitchen of the Tonino restaurant had to be remodelled, choosing a new, more efficient and higher-performance cooking technology to meet the chef’s demands.
• The new kitchen had also to be easy to clean and ensure maximum hygiene. For this reason it was necessary for all the equipment to be integrated in a hygienic top and fitted on both sides with H3 hygienic open undercounter units.
• There were several critical factors in this respect as the island had to be positioned on the same base in concrete on which the previous one had been fitted and the height had to be 950 mm. An entirely made-to-measure design was therefore needed.
• Installation too was not the easiest: before reaching the kitchen the island had to be brought through the restaurant and then the door of the kitchen itself.

The solution

• In order to make their decision the management of Hugenhottenhalle and Avato relied on advice from the longstanding partner Brauneis Großküchentechnik and precious support from its designer Benjamin Fischer.
• Without any hesitation a solution with the Ambach name was chosen, a guarantee of high quality and great flexibility in the creation of totally unique made-to-measure solutions.
• A double cooking island was therefore devised: on the one side System 700 and on the other System 850. The combination of the two lines enabled the client’s needs to be met in full, overcoming all the technical limits imposed by the structure.
• In particular, in order to reach the height of 950 mm required for the worktop, Ambach shortened all the understructures and added a frame in stainless steel to the existing base.
• There were only three weeks available for dismantling the old island and installing the new one. The Ambach island was delivered in one piece and rotated in order to be transported into the entrance hall and finally through the door of the kitchen. “Moving was very complex, a really painstaking job with millimetric precision”, explained Benjamin Fischer, project manager with the company Brauneis. “Thanks to the great cooperation between all those involved we succeeded in managing everything without problems”.
• Each side of the island was equipped with a bain-marie, two electric induction hobs and a grill. In one of the two sides a grill was also added.
• The chef also requested a bratt pan from the System 900 line, particularly suitable for productions in the area of catering.
• Everyone was very satisfied. The management of Hugenhottenhalle and the restauranteur Antonio Toni were enthusiastic about the two partners, Ambach and Brauneis: “great technology, great design, maximum support!”