Guests at the oceanfront Fontainebleau Miami Beach come expecting excellence, and the staff goes above and beyond to deliver. The luxurious 22-acre property includes a 1,500-room hotel, 14 kitchens, nine restaurants, a world-class nightclub, an outdoor poolscape, and a two-story spa.
Restaurants and dining concepts on-site include Hakkasan (modern Cantonese), Scarpetta by Scott Conant (fine Italian), Stripsteak by Michael Mina (steakhouse), Pizza & Burger by Michael Mina, La Côte (French Mediterranean), several casual dining options, and In-Room Delights.
Chef Thomas Connell, Fontainebleau Miami Beach Vice President of Culinary Operations, coordinates the chefs at all the property’s restaurants. His team creates everything from the ground up: they have bakers, chocolatiers, sauciers, make their own ice cream, and create every soup from scratch.
“We still have the traditional brigade that existed in cuisine since the business started,” he said. “We can cook from the base up, and we have our hands in all of our ingredients.”
Chef Connell has more than three decades of experience working at some of the world’s most prestigious restaurants and resorts, and always uses RATIONAL combi ovens. “I’ve been working with RATIONAL for over 20 years now, and I put them in every property I have,” he said.
Chef Connell’s team prepares about 5,000 meals daily, including staff meals and banquets. During the peak season, this can swell to 10,000 meals. That adds up to 3.6 million covers a year, and RATIONAL helps to make it possible. RATIONAL combi ovens are used in five of the Fontainebleau Miami Beach kitchens to prepare a good majority of food served.
Chef Connell is convinced RATIONAL combi ovens are the most well-built, reliable, and technologically advanced on the market. He values their precision, versatility, and consistency. “Sous vide, roast, braise, pastry applications: the sensitivity of RATIONAL technology takes care of all of that and allows you to prepare things to such a degree of refinement and perfection.”
He notes that braised short rib comes out tender and juicy, and perfectly done. The RATIONAL chicken superspike accessory allows rotisserie chicken juices to drip on vegetables arranged beneath, with spectacular results.
“A RATIONAL saves you in so many ways; from product reliability, efficiency, and consistency, it just makes your life easier,” Connell said. “There are no combi ovens that perform like it, and that has been the case for over 25 years.”