- On a double show day, (upbeat music)
like today, the restaurants will have a double service.
So we are looking at catering maybe upwards of 1300 people.
(crowd chattering)
- Thank you.
- Morning, Giovanni.
- Morning.
- How are you?
- Oh, good, you?
- Morning guys, how we doing?
(staff murmuring greeting)
(oven buzzes)
It's all happening today.
It just seems so calm at the moment. (laughs)
(sighs) Sometimes you've just got to
come out here to get a little bit of quiet and inspiration.
(funky music)
So currently, the team,
I have 44 chefs in the building at the moment.
Soon we'll have a head chef in each restaurant.
Who's going where?
Who's doing what for today?
- So for lunch- - Cinema package.
- We're going to start doing the burgers soon.
- Yep.
So, in the main kitchen itself
we have separate teams working.
We'll have the pastry team working,
the cafe/bar team working.
Our staff canteen is all made
and prepared in the main kitchen.
So it's now 10:30 in the morning.
I'm just going to go through the restaurants upstairs
and make sure all the chefs are doing
what they should be doing,
getting ready for lunch.
So we have three restaurant kitchens,
I have two dining bar satellite kitchens,
we have the main kitchen,
and then we also have various kitchens dotted around
that are hidden, bespoke kitchens
for events and functions.
All in all, on a given night,
we could be sending food out from up to 12 different areas.
(crowd chattering) Okay, good morning,
how are you? - Yes, good morning.
- You all right?
Good to see you. - All right.
- How's everything? - I'm good, I'm good.
- How we looking for today?
- Good.
Almost ready. - How many covers?
How many covers for lunch?
- 120. - 120 for lunch, and dinner?
180?
- Yes.
- So you're probably going to be looking
at about 300 covers for the day today,
plus all the walk-ins,
I expect to do 400 in this restaurant alone today.
- All right. - All right. (laughs)
We have a lot of communication via walkie talkie,
however, I walk around the kitchens every day
four or five times, tasting items,
talking to the chefs, speaking to the team,
just general following up with everybody.
All good, yeah? Okay.
All right, perfect.
Behind, behind, behind. Coming through.
This morning, going to make for you
the Welsh rarebit souffle tart.
So a Welsh rarebit will be
a posh cheese on toast, basically.
So we serve the Welsh rarebit
as a small little mini tart,
but we bake it into a souffle
so it becomes a lot lighter, a lot fluffier.
We can make, potentially,
anywhere up to 1600, 1700 of these a day.
These canapes are used in our public box dining,
which is also known as a suite.
First we'll add our Scottish stout goes in.
We've then got some English mustard,
Worcestershire sauce, and a touch of grain mustard as well.
(uptempo electronic music)
And also a little bit of a flavor
to cut through the richness of the cheese.
And we're going to whisk in our milk which we've pre-warmed.
So now we're going to add our two different types of cheese.
English cheddar is the best in the world.
So heat is off on the pan,
and we can slowly add in our egg yolk.
There we go.
So our rarebit base mix is ready to go.
The other ingredients of a Welsh rarebit,
or my rendition of a Welsh rarebit,
which we're going to call a Blushing Bunny today,
'cause I'm going to combine it
with some nice sun-dried tomatoes
and a homemade tomato sauce.
The reason why I'm baking these today is
we've got a big dinner planned next year
for about 1600 people,
and I'm going to propose this dish to be
a starter on that menu.
(laughs) Chef's like, "what are you doing?"
Like, "yeah, let me do it."
Okay chef, if you wouldn't mind tasting for me please,
proposed menu item for July dinners next summer.
Up to 1600 people.
- 1600 people?
- Yes, chef.
- Nice. - Yep.
- Really nice. Nice and rich.
Good amount of cheese in there, it's good.
Lovely. Yeah, let's go for it.
It's nice. Very nice.
- Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Just leave that there for a minute,
is that all right?
So we have here at the hall,
we've got 147 different boxes,
set over three floors.
I'll be back in a bit for you, yeah?
This could get a little bit hectic for a moment.
They can seat anywhere from four to 12 people,
depending upon the size of those boxes.
And they're one of the most prestigious parts
of the building.
(frenetic orchestral music)
(walkie-talkie beeping)
Yeah, hi there.
Second tier 46.
Have you got two seconds to pop upstairs, please?
They've ordered a lot of food
and by the looks of it,
they're having a box experience as well.
There will not be enough room for all their food, over.
That's all right.
Two boxes so far.
So this one is needing an additional table,
and then the missing cheese straws for another box.
But at the end of the day, these things happen.
It's about what we do to rectify it,
and fix the small hiccup.
- [Voice Over PA] The doors leading to
restaurant and bars, our stewards will now open.
- All right, that was the Tannoy call
just to let everyone know
that the restaurant doors are now open.
So once we finish dropping the public boxes,
we'll head up back to the restaurants
and see how they're getting on for their lunch service.
- Hello. - Hi buddy.
How are you? You all right?
So, it's now 1:00 in the afternoon.
We are just walking through the Verdi kitchen.
This is when this kitchen's going to start to
really rock and roll,
and all the orders are going to come
in the kitchen thick and fast.
The spaces that we have
inside this 150-year-old building being so limited,
we have literally put a kitchen inside of this,
you know, this small space here.
These guys over here are cooking the pizzas at the moment.
They will cook anywhere up to 400 to 500
of these on a daily basis,
freshly made to order, dough made in-house.
This is what we work with,
and it's all part of the guest experience as well.
The customers enjoy watching us working,
taking things out of the oven,
slicing their pizzas,
and making the salads fresh to order as well.
Service please.
So this is the busiest kitchen
out of all of them at the Royal Albert Hall.
Like I say, today we'll probably do...
Table 55 please, 55.
...we'll probably do 400 to 500 covers in here alone.
And then I've got, upstairs, I've got ready,
I've got Korean beef tartare to be tasted.
(funky music)
So, we are now in the Great Exhibition bar.
So this is one of 14 bars in the whole of the venue.
We have two dining bars, which is this one here,
plus the one below us, and Kensington Garden bar.
So, here we go.
So, this is our Korean steak tartare,
done with a little bit of a difference.
We've got an egg yolk custard, Japanese mayonnaise,
toasted sesame seeds.
The dressing is made up
with some pickled daikon,
touch of Korean pepper through there.
And then we serve this one
with a homemade squid ink tapioca crisp.
The favorite part of my day will be tasting food,
tasting new dishes that people have created.
Absolutely.
On an average day,
I probably do about 20,000 steps myself.
On a busy day, probably up to 40,000.
So we're just going to head into the Elgar restaurant now.
Things are really starting to get very busy.
Chef Kostas.
- Hello chef.
- All good?
- Yeah, of course.
- Okay, so this is Kostas.
Kostas is the head chef of the Elgar restaurant.
He's going to show you quickly now before service time
how to make the beer batter
for the beer-battered fish and chips for us.
Let me be your comis chef, okay?
- Yeah.
- Yep, absolutely.
- [Kostas] Corn flour. - Corn flour
- For better texture and better crispiness.
Then we have beer and sparkling water.
(intense music)
- Back in the 16th century was when
the fish and chips were first introduced
to the United Kingdom shores,
brought in by some Spanish and Portuguese immigrants.
By the 1910s, we probably had
about just over 10,000 fish and chip shops.
1930s was around 25,000.
Fish and chips is part of the British staple diet.
However, fish and chip shops are
very much in decline at the moment.
Things change like seasons, but it'll come back around.
And that's why we like to play around
with such classical dishes like this.
But we do it to a restaurant standard.
Okay, let's dig in and give it a taste, chef, yeah?
- [Kostas] Oui.
- A little hot.
Very nice.
And that's how we do a British fish and chips.
That's it. Fantastic. Great job.
You're ready for service.
If you need me,
I'll be back up in about half an hour for you.
- All right. - Okay.
Have a great service.
Thank you. - Thank you, chef.
- Thank you very much.
(paper rustling)
(meat sizzling)
How are you? You all right?
Ready to go?
Stephan, our executive pastry chef.
- We handle our pastry (upbeat music)
for the whole of the hall, basically.
So yeah, we got three restaurants.
We got the coffee shop, and then we have the boxes
which are, you've seen the canapes over there.
So these choux buns are coated with a craquelin.
And then we make the craquelin,
which is very simple.
It has three ingredients,
which is your butter, sugar.
So we are adding some red color.
So the next step, what's going to happen,
Erickson will roll this out
between two pieces of paper.
Right, so, choux pastry is quite simple.
It's basically a mix of water, butter,
sugar, and a little bit of salt.
You bring that to the boil,
you gotta add your flour,
and then you mix it until it's smooth
and it actually comes away from your pan.
So, and then while it's still hot,
what we're going to do is we incorporate the eggs,
and it's going to get piped. (mixer whirring)
And then basically, what we are looking for is
just a really really nice and smooth mix.
Right, so we fill them in the piping bag,
the mixture, basically.
And we're going to add one of these discs on top.
Now the disc looks much bigger than
the actual choux bun,
but the idea is the choux bun,
this will rise to about double the size,
and then while it goes up,
it actually coats the whole choux bun.
At home, my wife absolutely hates when I'm doing pastry
because you know, instead of having like one pan
and you add and add and add,
you end up with having like six or seven pans
and bowls and whatever you get your hands on, basically.
And as a pastry chef, you do tend to use quite a lot.
Right, so, this is the finished product,
which is the choux bun is filled
with a raspberry pastry cream
and then it's topped with a Chantilly cream,
garnished with some fresh raspberries.
As I say, the proof is in the pudding, so.
- Come on, let's have a hug.
(Stephan laughs) Come here.
(both laugh)
- Chef, chef, I want a big raise.
(both laughing)
(inspiring orchestral music)
- I mean, I'm obviously impartial,
but it's very tasty, so. (crew laughing)
- It's actually very nice, Stephan.
- [Stephan] Can I come back tomorrow?
- You can.
- Okay. - Please do. Please do.
(Stephan laughs)
(meat sizzling)
- The capacity for the auditorium is just over 5,200 people.
The interval will last anywhere from 20 to 25 minutes.
If you can imagine 30, 40, 50% leaving
the auditorium to go and grab a drink,
and then us delivering food and beverage
to their boxes- - I got a black coffee.
- Or their suites,
things can get busy. (card reader beeping)
(staff chattering indistinctly)
I would say that this job is definitely not an easy job.
Yeah, I won't lie.
It is a very hard job to do, to operate, to run.
But I love my job.
And not everybody could do it, no.
- Do you need me to stay?
(chef responds indistinctly)
Yeah. (laughs)
So, 6:30 now in the evening.
We've checked in up on the Elgar,
we've delivered all the public boxes.
We've got a little bit of food going
out of the interval,
but we are pretty much done for the day.
So I'm going to say goodnight to you.
I'm going to crack on for a little bit,
but thank you very much.