Fine dining and sustainability for the Rust en Vrede Restaurant

Fine dining thrives on special culinary experiences: exquisitely decorated dishes, delicately cut ingredients, as well as a focus on regional produce, sustainability and seasonality, which is why Rust en Vrede only keeps a limited menu. Depending on the availability of the selected, high-quality ingredients, unique creations and surprises may appear on the menu. „When guests come to us and the vineyard, they expect a world-class experience. That is always the aim of our company, whether it is in producing wine or the dishes in our restaurant“, says Fabio Daniel, chef de cuisine at Rust en Vrede. Fabio Daniel also has the same standards for the devices used in the kitchen. Around 7,700 people visit the restaurant every year expecting world-class results and that everything works perfectly. 

Christian Schiess, Managing Director, Bizerba Southern Africa (Pty), remembers advising Rust en Vrede „The Rust en Vrede restaurant was looking for premium kitchen equipment that was fit for handling the demands of fine dining. As a fine dining restaurant, they must provide consistently exceptional quality food and service to match. Furthermore, the reduction in food waste was also a major criterion.” In contrast to preparation by hand, food is cut much more accurately with a professional machine. With approximately 500 dishes prepared every evening, the results are readily visible and can be measured.

The chef de cuisine was looking for quality equipment that is also sustainable: Their durability and effectiveness in reducing the amount of food waste produced help Rust en Vrede in being sustainable, another claim they take seriously. Fabio Daniel states: „One of the toughest challenges nowadays is to reduce food waste and improve sustainability.“ As a WWF Conservation Champion, our vineyard puts nature preservation at the heart of everything they do. This also covers gastronomy. In order to achieve this aim, he obtained several quotations before deciding on Bizerba: „Bizerba manufactures some of the best-known and highest quality devices on the market. As a fine dining restaurant, our aim is always to provide a truly world-class experience in every aspect. We look for products that ensure the highest levels of quality, service and the best results. Bizerba satisfied all these requirements.”

With four different solutions from Bizerba, Fabio Daniel doesn't just have the advantage that there is only one contact partner if he has any queries. The solutions have a direct impact on the dishes and indeed the sustainability of the restaurant. 

Precise results & less waste

Fabio Daniel casts an eye back to the past: „Before we had these solutions from Bizerba, we often had to accept that quality, service and the outcome wasn't quite what we hoped to achieve. Thanks to the precision we can now achieve, we already produce far less waste.“ An example of this is the GSP H, which as an all-round slicer it is just as suitable for dishes like carpaccio as for the side salads: „Whether it is raw meat or even vegetables, we always have the same, perfectly cut product. This is extremely important for us.“ Also, the FK23 meat and bone saw combines function and sustainability: „We can now cut each steak to the same thickness so we now produce as little waste as possible.“  

Detailed labels & Stating allergens

The PC scale and label printer plays an important role in the kitchen and in the preparation of dishes. It precisely weighs out the ingredients for the dish, but can also do much more than that: Fabio Daniel aims to be a pioneer for labelling allergens in South Africa and therefore labels the products portioned in the kitchen in detail. Ingredients that could trigger allergies or intolerances are noted to this effect on the label. „We do not just use the XC-800 to weigh everything that we vacuum-pack. It enables us to label every ingredient contained in the package – such as allergens. As you would expect, the date is the most important so that we do not handle any products that have expired.“ 

The Rust en Vrede team is very happy with the decision to use Bizerba products: „Cooperation with Bizerba has been exceptional up to now. We share the same corporate values. This is why we, as a company, hope to work with Bizerba for a long time to come.“