Testimonial – Cafe 1

Twenty years of Rational, now it’s time for a change…

In September 2016 Bekim Behrami, Chef/Manager of Café 1 in Epsom, Surrey was presented with a dilemma… After twenty or so years of using Rational combination ovens he had to decide if he needed to go to the expense of a new Rational with all of its ‘bells and whistles’ or to opt for a simpler, more cost effective alternative. After a long chat with Dave Bradford, Taylor UK’s South East of England’s sales manager, Mr Behrami opted to save some of his money and chose a brand new Prática EC6, 10 grid combination oven steamer.

Pratica EC6

The Café 1 menu features the usual café classics utilising the many functions of the Prátca EC6. They bake off morning pastries and croissants, bake jacket potatoes and baguettes, roast chicken and meat joins, grill bacon and sausages and steam vegetables. The simple push button operation allows any operator to easily switch between functions which include; dry heat, combi-cooking, steaming and re-generation.

It’s a combination oven with all of the function and none of the faff!

Mr Behrami commented; “Having used the market leading ovens from Rationale for over twenty years, and being very happy with all they could do, the time came to replace my current oven, as good as the Rationale was, we simply didn’t need all the functionality it provided, and ultimately, why pay for something you are not going to use?”

Why pay for features that you never end up using…

“Predominantly the price was the initial draw, the Prática was approximately a third of the cost of my previous oven. However when all the benefits of the oven were explained to me by Dave, it became an even more attractive proposition. The physical size is a lot smaller than others in the market place, but it still holds 10 full size gastronorm trays” added Bekim.

Bekim continued; “The assisted-cleaning function on the EC6 is more than enough for our needs, it has the added bonus that we are not required to buy any expensive special cleaning products. Admittedly the EC6 doesn’t have all the functionality of the Rational, but ultimately we didn’t need hundreds of preset programmes, so why pay for something we won’t use!”

“This oven does everything we need it to do, at a fraction of the price. The footprint is a lot smaller than our previous oven, which has allowed us to free up much needed extra space in the kitchen, something that’s always required! Whilst it hasn’t changed how and what we do, it does do all we need it to. Starting the day with our ‘bake off’ products, then the ‘Jacket potatoes’ followed by everything else we need to pre-cook before we get busy, which ultimately is all we can ask it to do!” concluded Bekim.

It does just as good a job as the previous oven we had, which costed the business a lot more money, ultimately we are ‘Quids In’ now!!

If you’re ever in the Epsom area, pop in a see the guys at the Café 1, they can be found at 122 High Street, Epsom, Surrey, KT19 8BJ.

Website: www.Cafe1.co.uk

Equipment Installation date: September 2016