Matthias Stuber Executive Chef at Roomers in Munich, is what you might call a concept genius. The thirty-five year old joined us to discuss what makes the hotel’s restaurant concepts so special.
Image: Hilke Opelt
Tell us about the concepts you developed for Roomers Munich.
Matthias Stuber: Let’s start in chronological order. Our breakfast concept focuses on light, healthy food, with a lot of Middle Eastern-inspired dishes. The same goes for the recreation area, which uses a concept based on light poke and smoothie bowls. The event area features an open kitchen, and uses a sharing concept, though we completely accommodate any customer request. Servus Heidi, a young, modern Bavarian tavern, is part of the hotel as well. And then on top of that we have seasonal concepts and highlights. Izakaya, a concept that originated in Amsterdam, combines Japanese and Central American cuisine.
You use open-kitchen solutions with all of your concepts. Why?
Stuber: Izakaya actually goes one step further than that – when you’re standing in the hotel driveway, you can see right into the kitchen and watch the chefs work. That’s what sets Roomers apart from other hotels: our emphasis is on food. You can sense it from the moment you arrive.
Image: Roomers
How does that go over with guests?
Stuber: The entertainment factor is playing an ever-greater role in the dining world, so open kitchens are always very popular… plus they offer customers a certain degree of transparency, which is something today’s customers want and expect. One of our guiding principles is that we want to create Instagrammable moments – regardless of whether we’re preparing food for breakfast or at Izakaya, we always want to present it in a way that makes customers immediately want to post a photo of it on social media. When we succeed, of course, it makes us proud. That’s our internal motivation to give 110% every day.
You use Rational technology in all of your kitchens. What made you decide to do that?
Stuber: Rational units help us make sure that customers always get the same results at the same high level of quality with every order. The SelfCookingCenter and the VarioCookingCenter both offer uniform programs that allow us to define standards for each dish, which guarantees that the process will be identical every time. At Servus Heidi, for example, we’ve started creating our own individual programs – for pork belly, for example. Same goes for Izakaya, where we’ve defined a cooking process for our short ribs, among others. We use the units differently depending on the individual restaurant and the tasks at hand.
