River Dining Halls Go Upper Class

As TV chef Emeril Lagasse would say, "Bam!" Eliot and Kirkland residents returning this fall found dining hall service areas straight off a Food Network set, supported by kitchens run like a high-tech assembly line.

But the shiny areas students can see are just the tip of the iceberg lettuce. Soon most undergraduate Houses will be renovated on the model of Eliot and Kirkland, designed by a collective effort at Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) and built on the cutting edge of institutional cooking.

The project was headed by Lenny Condenzio, an associate director at HUDS who also led renovations at Annenberg Hall and in Adams House in the last five years.

The Eliot and Kirkland renovations have drawn rave reviews from students, but Condenzio says that the process of transforming two well-worn kitchens into models for the entire food service industry--all in 11 weeks--is one that could only have been done with lots of help.

"You can't be successful here at Harvard unless you involve everyone," Condenzio says with the pride of a father. "It's important that I have lots of names in this article."

Setting the Stage

The seeds for the drastic changes at Eliot and Kirkland were first laid at a retreat for HUDS management held two years ago.

Now known infamously among HUDS circles simply as "Cranwell"--for the name of the facility where the retreat was held--the event gave the management team and then-incoming HUDS Director Ted A. Mayer an opportunity to brainstorm about the future of HUDS.

The question they asked was "What do we want to look like in 10 years from now" says Alixandra E. McNitt, assistant director for marketing and communications for HUDS.

In doing so, the group identified five areas to focus on, including food production and delivery--"How do we produce the food and once it's produced, how do we deliver it to students?" McNitt says.

The food served by HUDS, they decided, didn't always look and taste good because kitchens had to make too much of it at once.

For instance, McNitt says that ideally, all of the french fries served by HUDS would be hot and crispy. But in reality, HUDS' use of steam warming tables often meant that fries were soft and lukewarm.

"In our perfect world, a fryolater [the deep fryer that cooks french fries] would be right out there," McNitt says.

Making Changes

And so they set out with a vague notion to bring the kitchen into the dining hall.

But with space already at a premium in the Houses, McNitt says HUDS acknowledged that if it wanted to push the walls of the kitchen back, something had to give.

Eliot and Kirkland's facilities were the most conducive to this expansion, Condenzio says, so the group decided that renovations would begin there.

"These old buildings hold a lot of surprises," Condenzio says. But he says knowing so much renovation had gone into those structures in recent years gave HUDS some security that there would be fewer problems when it looked to again renovate, this time in the kitchens.

With the basic goal in place, Condenzio says HUDS began bringing people together to start brainstorming about the specifics of the renovation.

The ideas came from staffers in HUDS' retail shops--as in Loker Commons--and Crimson Cash operations, as well as dining hall managers from various other Houses, purchasing managers for the College's food service system and HUDS Executive Chef Michael Miller.

The list of ideas that came out of the meeting, according to McNitt, was well over 100 pages long.

"There was a great deal of faith in our ability to do this," she says.

Their goal, McNitt says, was to allow dining services to be flexible and adapt to new trends in food service or changing student needs.

Cooking large batches of identical meals at each of the Houses, they realized, was a thing of the past. Not only was it inefficient, but it also led to meals that often looked less fresh in their displays than they really are.

As a result, the group decided that it would be better to have chefs prepare small batches of menu items in front of students in the kitchen so that the food would look and taste fresher.

Despite HUDS' own excitement for the plan and its current success, Condenzio admits that some people still were not ready to immediately jump on the bandwagon while this renovation was still in the planning stages.

Condenzio attributes this to what he calls "the FUD factor" (for fears, uncertainty and doubts)--something which HUDS anticipated and worked hard to allay.

"There were so many questions and this process was about answering them," Condenzio says.

Convincing people about the merits of the revolutionary type of change was not any easy task, they admit.

But as HUDS worked with the groups of students, House Masters and other College staff, they were able to use data to prove that the system would work.

Masters for their part were concerned about whether such a new system could actually be successful at Harvard--not to mention having more technical questions about how the renovations would affect their buildings.

Armed with computerized data tracking dining hall usage at different points of the day and on different menu days, HUDS was able to show that the new system of cooking food in smaller doses would not cause massive backlogs in the dining hall.

The system could anticipate busy times and respond accordingly, Condenzio says.

But more than just that, the two Houses had different conceptions of what the renovations would look like and how they would fit into the Houses.

Eliot, for example, wanted a room that would complement the look of the existing dining hall with its mahogany walls and impressive artwork. Kirkland, on the other hand, was looking for more light and a more spacious kitchen.

McNitt says being able to take these concerns and work from the perspective of the customer allowed HUDS to create a better design.

"We want to wed ourselves in with what House life is all about," Condenzio says. "You need to feel like you're walking into the butler's pantry of a big home," Condenzio says.

Order Up

But the changes HUDS had in mind meant beefing up the central kitchen serving the River Houses, located on the floors below Eliot and Kirkland and connected to the other Houses by tunnels.

The result was an underground complex of computerized machinery more worthy of NASA than Bell Ringing Beef.

Most important was HUDS' adoption of the new "blast-chill" method of cooking, the system that would be the basis for the cooking revolutions in Eliot and Kirkland.

According to Condenzio, the blast-chill system is a state-of-the-art technology that starts in the central kitchen. Giant racks of food are first cooked partway through in ovens.

Then, still on the racks, the food is taken into sealed rooms kept at a very low temperature. There, they are monitored by HUDS personnel watching computer readouts until they reach a very low temperature at which they can be stored.

From cold storage, the food is taken to individual dining halls, where it can be taken out of storage and cooked quickly. The advantage is that dining halls aren't overrun with masses of fully-cooked food at once.

In addition, liquids such as soups and sauces also go through a similar cook-chill method and get transported to the Houses for use. Where once soup sat out on the serving line from lunch until dinner, now it can be warmed up and used only when it is needed.

"We consider [the process] a breakthrough," McNitt says.

The Proof is in the Pudding

With the plans laid, however, the real test came over the summer. HUDS needed to execute the entire project in just under three months--an ambitious deadline to say the least at a University not known for its ability to change in a jiffy.

"It's unheard of...but we didn't have an option," McNitt says.

Indeed, with a team of 156 subcontractors working day and night--and often 90 people at any one time--the project came through.

The new dining halls bear little resemblance to their former selves. Gone is the linear set-up for food gathering, replaced instead with an arrangement that encourages students to mingle and congregate at different parts of the serving area.

Gone are the metal hotel-style pans that held foods and the steam trays that sat under hot food. Instead, HUDS has electric hot plates and heat lights to keep food warmer and crisper, as well as ceramic bowls to hold food.

The chefs too have come out of the seclusion of the kitchen and now cook food on special induction ranges in full view of the students.

"This is a much more attractive framework for professionally-trained cooks and chefs," McNitt says.

Condenzio says the new environment is intended to empower chefs to cook better by allowing them to cook in smaller batches.

"We've designed a servery that allows people to be successful at what they serve," Condenzio says. "All of the sudden, there's this window, this breath of fresh air [of chefs] saying 'I can do this.'"

Although HUDS acknowledges there is a learning curve involved in producing food under such a new system, both Condenzio and McNitt brim with enthusiasm.

"It's a huge change for us. Can you tell we're excited?" McNitt beams.

And based on initial feedback, it seems like many people share HUDS' excitement.

"They did it just the right way," says Eliot House Master Stephen A. Mitchell. "It is so brilliant and we have been so blessed around here. The whole process of that project was such a pleasure."

Next up for renovations will be Winthrop and Lowell Houses, which will be worked on next summer. Condenzio says they will follow the patterns set in Eliot and Kirkland.

Then, the remaining Houses will then be fixed up over the next seven years, with the three Houses on the Radcliffe Quadrangle renovated last.