HCE helps Lenny Carr-Roberts make a splash with Shoal
Shoal is a premium fish and chip restaurant and takeaway located in Winchester’s Guildhall, which takes the British classic to new heights. Shoal provides stylish and welcoming surroundings, and a friendly atmosphere mixed with incredibly tasty, locally sourced, quality food. Under the stewardship of Chef Patron, Lenny Carr-Roberts, Shoal offers a great choice of fantastic fish and chips, freshly baked pies and their mouth-watering gelato which uses local milk which is churned and pasteurised every day.
When planning the Shoal, concept, Lenny didn’t think twice about calling on the services of HCE again: “It was an easy decision to choose HCE to come and do Shoal because the job they had done at The Fox was great, the aftercare was just phenomenal. Six months after the job, if something broke, they came in right away and it was done. If something needed to be fabricated, it was done. The aftercare was just superb, that relationship we had with them was brilliant so when it came to commissioning people to come and do Shoal, it was the same team.”
“Shoal was different because we were dealing with a huge frying range, a back kitchen and a front kitchen. Design wise everything had to be pretty, it had to look great, work efficiently and be quiet enough for it to be an open kitchen.”
HCE’s skills and vast experience really came into play as when designing the back kitchen as Lenny explains: “We designed the back kitchens with Rational combis and iVarios – which is a massive pressure cooker – so we needed HCE’s design skills to fit everything in. In addition, making fresh gelato everyday was something we had never done before and HCE really helped us to work with the Carpigiani guys which was really helpful.”
Creating such a classically British, warm and welcoming restaurant like Shoal, which can cater for large volumes requires multiple highly skilled teams and HCE seamlessly delivered yet again, as Lenny summarised: “I would always recommend HCE for their professionalism, aftercare and design team which is think is a key thing. They aren’t just kitchen fitters they will design it for you. I will and have happily recommended them to people!”
