The Blues Kitchen
Camden, London, UK
The Blues Kitchen in Camden is a lively bar and live music venue combining Southern-inspired food, an extensive bourbon and whiskey selection, and nightly blues, soul, and jazz performances in the heart of London’s Camden. Jayden the Juniour Sous Chef talks us through using the Adande VCS2 unit in their kitchen. Telling us why temperature accuracy matters so much when you’re serving quality food consistently, and how the double stack setup means he can run one drawer as a freezer and the other as a fridge, without needing separate units taking up space.
So, tell me about Blues Kitchen!
Well, the company has been running for a long time now. I think it was 2002 that it started. I’d describe us as adventurous. We’re trying to stick with the times. We’re not trying to fall behind. We’re always trying to improve and change things if they need to be changed. It’s a good company, it’s very welcoming, everyone works together well and we’ve got good music and good food. So yeah, it’s a great company.
What food is on your menu?
I think I’d describe it as like Tex-Mexican, you could say, but we are changing a little bit, adding some more French-style things, and we’ve had a little bit of influence from East Asian food as well lately.
"When you’re in a rush, it’s just great to pull out the Adande drawer and grab what you need, and bam, it’s done!"
How important is precise temperature control to you, & do the drawers support your ingredient quality?
It’s really, really important. Obviously, we want to serve quality food to people, consistently, and having fridge freezers that are able to hold food at the correct temperature is the most important thing. It keeps things fresh! Nothing goes off when you’ve got an accurate fridge or freezer, so it’s amazing for us.
How do Adande drawers compare to other refrigeration you’ve used in terms of consistency & reliability?
They are really great. When you open and close them, they always keep the temperature accurate. Sometimes with other fridges the temperature can drop, which obviously you don’t want. You want to keep everything fresh, and the VCS2 does a really good job of holding the cold. I also like that with the double stacks, you can have a freezer for one of the drawers and a fridge on the other, which is great. As you don’t have to have two separate fridges. Plus, there’s loads of room in them!
How does having an aerial view of your ingredients with Adande help your operation?
It’s really helpful. So, we have another freezer that has a lid you have to lift up heavily and then you’ve got to dig through everything to get things. It’s not the greatest. And even the ones where it’s just a cabinet door, you’ve still got to go to the back of the cabinets and move things out of the way. When you’re in a rush, it’s just great to pull out the Adande drawer and grab what you need, and bam, it’s done!
What would you rate Adande refrigerated drawers out of 10?
“I would rate Adande drawers 10 out of 10.”