Project Description:

Chef Ben Pollinger of Oceana in New York City designed his updated dream kitchen with the help of Thom Rinaldi from AKA Consultants and commercial equipment by Jade Range. The final layout reflected Pollinger’s emphasis on maximizing work flow and efficiency. Some of the chef’s specific design requests included placing the main Jade Range cooking suite near the entrance of the dining room and strategically situating individual cooking stations to put everything within easy reach. As with any creative project, Pollinger and Rinaldi encountered challenges during the design process, including stationary interior support columns that had to be incorporated into the design as well as a last minute increase of a few hundred square feet to the original floor plan—all in a day’s work, so to speak, in the restaurant business.

When asked why he chose Jade Range, Pollinger said, “I chose Jade because of its ability to stand up to heavy use, its overall quality, and its ability to deliver heat as needed, whether adjustable, very hot, or moderate.” The final design included four 36-inch, six-burner ranges—a custom Spanish-style plancha with a cast iron top and U-shaped burner, a French-top range, a grill, two broilers, and a custom large format six-burner range. Another unique feature of Pollinger’s kitchen is that all of the ovens have a heat sink: a thick steel plate on the floor of the oven to retain heat and correct any temperature fluctuations from opening and closing of the door during service—which, in a restaurant as successful as Oceana, are frequent.