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The Jewel in the Crown - Melbourne's fabulous casino!
The New Asia Cuisine Scene - Issue 13 - Sept/Oct 98
The traditional rivalry between Australia's two largest cities - Sydney and Melbourne - continues in the hospitality industry. The latest battlefields are the luxurious casino complexes recently opened in each city.
Melbourne's Crown Resort is one of the largest and most diverse entertainment complexes of its kind in the world, and in my opinion, far superior in many areas to anything we have ever had in Australia.
Built in the heart of Melbourne along the banks of the Yarra River, the complex houses a 500 room five star hotel, the largest casino floor outside North America, Australia's biggest ballroom catering for up to 3000 seated guests, 50 restaurants, brasseries, bistros and bars, ( which includes Planet Hollywood and The All Star Café chain of outlets ) three night clubs, 14 cinemas and a theatre.
The man given the task to set-up and implement the many diverse operations in food & beverage (which can only be described as monster property by Australian standards ), was Mr Walter Wagner. A good friend and colleague to many of us, Walter was originally employed as the Crowns Executive Chef but now assumes the title of Director of Food Operations, giving him control over both the back and front of house activities. Swiss born, but now a proud member of the multi-cultural Australian community, Chef Wagner came to Australia via the Hyatt Regency Osaka and Tokyo Bay Hilton Hotels in Japan, prior to his appointment with Crown in January 1996.
It is his responsibility to oversee the serving of around 15,000 meals every day from 17 kitchens, employing 470 chefs from a variety of cultures around the world. 180 tonnes of meat, 300 tonnes of vegetables and some 6 million bread rolls are produced yearly by the Crown kitchen team. The complex employs some 8000 staff which also have to eat three times a day !
The operating strategy implemented by Chef Wagner was to find the best people to cook in each outlet, give them the independence and freedom to create, then stand back and monitor the results.
He says " the emphasis is get chefs to run these outlets
as though each were their own places. When a problem arises, the first question
he always asks is, 'What would you do if it was your own restaurant?' The
responsibility is then with them to seek out the answer with his help.
Chef Wagner has reshaped the role of central kitchens. They will do only the
most basic preparation of vegetables and meat in the main cental kitchen and
dispatch a handful of fundamental stocks, a communal mayonnaise and consomme.
Restaurant chefs will - in consultation with Chef Wagner - dictate the specifications
of raw materials they need. (The net has been thrown wide to snare Australian
beef, lamb, veal, seafood and so on.)
A second team of about 40 chefs handle Crown's pastry and bakery requirements
and a third produces the finished dishes for outlets close to the gaming tables.
"The priorities with gamblers," says Chef Wagner, "is consistent
quality and speed".
The seriousness with which the Wagner team is sourcing its basic ingredients can be gauged by its continual search for the best the Australia and the world has to offer.
The recent WACCS conference held in March conducted the Grand Finale dinner within the Crowns vast ballroom for 1000 guests and to the credit of Chef Wagner and his team the evening was a resounding success. Food and service could not be faulted.
Should you venture to Melbourne in the near future, put the Crown Resort on your list of must experience operations, you will not be disappointed.
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