Year: 2020

Location: Templepatrick

Specifics: Restaurant, Banquet & Production Kitchens and Bars 

 

The Rabbit Hotel sits on the grounds of the former Templeton Hotel, which was bought by Nicholas & Paul Hill of Galgorm Resort & Spa in late 2018. We then began working alongside Executive Chef, Israel Robb, to come up with the designs and workflows for the massive refurbishment planned.

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The concept for the foodservice operation was decided to have a central production kitchen which would feed into the individual satellite kitchens in the Rabbit Restaurant on the ground floor, and The Loft function suite on level one. The production kitchen consists mainly of Blue Seal Evolution cooking equipment including a 120 litre bratt pan, and 2no. Rational SCC combi steamers, all of which need to be capable of handling the volumes planned to run through this busy hotel; not to mention the number of plates which are fed through a Winterhalter rack conveyor. The Rabbit Restaurant is customer facing, so the decision was made to opt for the extremely attractive black enamel finish with Waldorf Bold for this area. This kitchen is also fitted with True Refrigeration which is some of the most energy efficient equipment available on the market, and Rational SCC combi steamers. We have also plenty of beautiful custom fabrication, including a twin tier heated pass which can be seen in the images. 

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The concept for The Loft kitchen is based around a theatre kitchen & high-end buffet style service where guests will have the chefs cook and serve their proteins in a traditional carvery style, and then help themselves to sides and sauces. The kitchen here consists of a back-wall cookline and canopy, and a central island with Waldorf chrome-top griddle and gas chargrill which has the chef front-facing while cooking and serving. This space gives a nostalgic feeling, and is a small homage back to the owners days of their first hotel, Tullymore House in Broughshane, which had a hugely successful carvery. 

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Challenges on this project are what you would imaging with inheriting an old building with old kitchens. All of the extract calculations had to be completed and all of the ductwork and fans had to be brought up to current regulations for a job of this scale. Other challenges were coordinating the gas and electrical services positions which mostly feed from below from the property's huge basement space. 

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Contract Manager- Gary McMullan

Main Contractors- Martin Hamilton & Hugh J O'Boyle

Architect- Cheah Rothe (David Armstrong)