Signiel Seoul is the benchmark in the world of the luxury hotel business in Korea and is managed by Lotte Hotels & Resorts, the largest hotel group in the country with a history of over half a century in the industry.
As exclusive brand of Lotte Hotels & Resorts, Signiel Seoul offers a totally special and memorable hotel experience to high-end clients from all over the world.

The interiors have an exclusive design, able to combine styles from the East and West and provide a breathtaking panoramic view of the city from all angles. The 235 rooms of the hotel are distributed in fact between the 87th and 101st floors of Lotte World Tower, the 123-storey skyscraper with a record height of 555 metres. The highest building in absolute terms in Korea from which you can admire the entire city of Seoul.

Opened in April 2017, Lotte World Tower is the fifth highest skyscraper in the world. Designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, as well as the luxury Hotel Signiel Seoul the skyline also houses offices, shops, an observatory, facilities for entertainment and accommodation for those working there.

Inside the hotel, there is a wide and sophisticated culinary range on offer at STAY, the elegant and modern award-winning restaurant which delights its guests with French dishes, and BICENO, a restaurant with one Michelin star serving typical Korean cuisine.

The requirement

• The Hotel needed a kitchen for the STAY restaurant on the same level as the restaurant and the expectations of Yannick Alleno, the chef with 3 Michelin stars at its helm.
• The kitchen had to be of the open type and also used for preparing the rich buffet breakfast for the hotel. For this reason a solution had to be identified which guaranteed quality, flexibility, performance and also a pleasing appearance.
• STAY is located on the 81st floor of the hotel. There were therefore quite a few critical factors to handle in order to move the equipment chosen.
• Moreover the height of the ceilings – just 2.20 m approximately – forced the choice of equipment with reduced height.
• The equipment had to be strictly electric as the use of gas is forbidden by law in skyscrapers.

The solution

• For such an important project Signiel Seoul chose the reliability of Ambach kitchens in the three lines System 850, System 900 and System 700.
• All the items of equipment were custom made to the client’s needs and developed ad hoc, taking account of the height restraints of the ceiling. Although, as required, all the appliances supplied are electric, they were designed to facilitate to a maximum their use by staff accustomed to using gas.
• The location of the restaurant on the 81st floor and the limited space in the lift meant the range had to be divided into four parts with later assembly and welding in situ by Ambach technical staff.
• The times for revising and adapting all the layouts, for production, despatch and installation were extremely tight. The staff in each kitchen were chosen just 4 months before opening of the restaurant. Therefore the design layouts were revised and adapted to the needs of the work team in a very short space of time.
• Not just quality and performance. The kitchens developed by Ambach for STAY are also very attractive in that open kitchens, both for use by the restaurant and the buffet breakfast of the hotel.
• All the kitchens of the restaurant are by Ambach, with the exception of the one reserved for staff.
• Great satisfaction at the end of both chef and staff. Ambach kitchens were found to be extremely easy to use and to clean, as well as pleasing to the eye and perfectly in line with the elegance of the hotel.