By Erin Hollingsworth and Tejal Rao
December 2006

Every year a few pieces of kitchen equipment introduce themselves to the restaurant world. Some are creative reappropriations of ancient or classic contraptions, some are significant improvements on basic kitchen necessities, while others are utterly new musings on what cooking can be. These are the most notable equipment of the year, many of them not-yet-popular, but all of them inevitable presences in the restaurant kitchen.

To Cook On:

Anti-griddle
Given contrasting texture is one of the hallmarks of food worth eating, the anti-griddle, at a relatively affordable $845, has a secure place in the restaurant kitchen. While it looks, sounds, and un-cooks like a Kurt Vonnegut/Mr. Freeze amalgam, it’s mechanism is really quite simple. The metal surface of the 1980’s computer monitor-sized anti-griddle cools to minus 30ºF, almost instantly freezing anything it touches, resulting in sweet and savory treats with cold, hard exteriors and creamy centers, or frozen liquid discs that dissolve in your mouth. Invented for Alinea’s Grant Achatz, the anti-griddle is sure to achieve the same cult following as the thermal circulator in years to come.

Fakircook Grill
If you’re looking for a visceral cooking experience, the Fakircook grill will satiate your desire. The name comes from the Indian fakirs who walk across hot nails, and the grill turns food items as seemingly innocuous as tuna and Kobe beef into impaled culinary martyrs. You heat the spikes on an open flame, flip it over, douse the spikes with herbs or flavorings, then place meat, generally, on the sizzling, flavorful spikes. What’s more, many chefs finish the cooking process with a blow torch making for a tender, flavorful piece of meat with a crisp, caramelized exterior.

To Cook In:
Winston CVap Cook and Hold
The microprocessor is the arguable brain of the CVap Cook and Hold, dictating water levels, air pressure and heat, all designed to do one thing – cook food perfectly. The microprocessor works with FDA regulations to insure not only is food delicious and moist, but safe; food cannot cook at low temperatures for long periods of time without then holding in the CVap for an appropriate amount of time. Josh Dechellis of Sumile uses his CVap to prepare Smoky Tuna Cheeks with Cedar Paper. Because the CVap takes care of so much of the guess work in cooking, with settings for doneness and browning, chefs like Dechellis can focus on creating innovative dishes like Cedar Tuna Cheeks. The compact size and counter-top surface mean the multi-functioning C-Vap fits comfortably in kitchens like wd-50, Per Se, and Jean Georges where chefs like Wylie Dufresne, Johnathan Benno and Jean-Georges Vongerichten are playing around with every possible function.

Lincoln Wear-Ever
Lincoln makes serious pots and pans to take the abuse of the restaurant kitchen ie. dropping, stacking, banging and over-loading with extra weight. Offering the usual conductivity and thermal efficiency of aluminum along with durable, dent-resistant 3005 aluminum alloy, the Wear-Evers are a good investment for chefs in the process of building a heavy-duty collection of pots and pans. Handles are securely fixed in a way that won’t loosen, leak, or trap food and start to smell. Look into the shallow and deep style sauce pots and the stock pots with faucets. Lincoln sells replacement faucets should you need them down the line.

Fata Paper
Imagine a transparent roll of shiny wrapping paper able to go up to 440­°F in water, oil, microwave or oven. You can roll out as much as you like, cut sheets to size, and wrap the food of your choice inside. Choose your method of cooking and check the inside temperature by probing through the gathering at the top. Now thank Fabio Tacchella, manager of the Italian National Culinary Team for helping develop the magical stuff and creating endless possibilities when it comes to cooking and serving an entirely modern “en papillote.” Just keep your Fata Paper away from direct flames.

Yieldking 100A Omnivection Oven
It steams, convects, smokes and holds. It has two precision temperature probes and cooks a wide range of proteins according to the user’s exact specifications. There’s a tray to catch stray juices, making for easy sauce construction, and the oven cools at rapid speed allowing for quick temperature change and great roast turkey, for instance. It can cook 12 13-pound prime ribs simultaneously. The Yieldking is a great all-in-one option for any restaurant kitchen.

To Prep:

Berkel Slicer
When it comes to carefully slicing huge quantities of breads, vegetables and meats during the rush of prep, a smooth, even, dependable slicer can almost become a pleasure to use. Almost. Berkel’s gravity feed slicers come in 10, 12, and 14 inch-knife models to suit every size requirement, and their varied powers make sense according to how many hours a day your slicer will be in action, from an hour or two a day to heavy duty.

Korin Knives
Patricia Yeo, Eric Ripert and Jean-Georges Vongerichten all swear by their thin-bladed, durable Korin knives. The sharp Japanese models are suited for every job – from boning, butchering, and peeling, to fileting. More excitingly, the techniques used to build the Japanese knives were originally developed for making katana, or traditional samurai swords. When Japanese sword-making was banned in the mid-nineteenth century, skilled metal workers shifted their attention to the kitchen, hence the seriously sharp, well-weighted, Japanese knives of Korin.