New kitchen at Le Talbooth

Everyone needs a bit of TLC (tender loving care) occasionally. The same applies to restaurant kitchens – especially when they are in their seventh decade! In January 2017, award winning Le Talbooth in Dedham on the banks of the River Stour closed for three weeks while its kitchen received a complete facelift.

Everything was ripped out from the walls, ceiling, floors, fridges, cookers to the wash up. Because this was a significant amount of work the restaurant was closed between 1 and 20 January.

During the closure, Le Talbooth operated a ‘pop up’ restaurant in the Garden Room at Maison Talbooth for hotel guests only.

This meant that the Grande Cuisine team in partnership with design and installation firm SALIX had to deliver and install the new Athanor suite as quickly as possible.

The bespoke suite tailored to the site’s requirements included two traditional style gas solid tops, one gas simmer top, one double Plaque Athanor plancha/cook plate, one double fryer, one 1/1Gn 6kW chaufont/multi-cooker and one specialist water bath.

Fitted below the top the unit one traditional cast iron lined classical style roasting oven and one set of 3x 1/1Gn hot holding drawers. Set above the work top is an overshelf suite with a CAPIC salamander grill mounted to the service end of the suite.

The results were so good that head chef Andy Hirst and his team might even be persuaded to give you a guided tour when you next visit Le Talbooth.