Hello from Fifteen Cornwall (UK)

[Tristan]

Just a quick hello from myself.

I'm the bar manager at Fifteen Cornwall (yes, that's right Jamie Olivers restaurant) we have recently started to seriously revamp our coffee offering moving from Puro to Origin (Cornish brand) Fairtrade Organic which I am much happier with.

I dropped in to the South West heat of the UKBC recently which was good fun as I know a few of the competitiors and I hope to be competing next year.

So if anyone is in Cornwall drop into Fifteen and have a chat with us and hopefully we wont dissapoint with our coffee. Also i'd reccommend Relish in Wadebridge who also use Origin Coffee.

Cheers

Tristan

[Metalstar]

Awesome

I've been out to 4 or 5 restaurants in the past few weeks and not once had a coffee I could drink.

Its great news that you are putting specific focus on getting it right Its no good having a great meal and then leaving with a bad taste in your mouth!

oh . . and welcome to TMC!

[monkey66]

Hi Tristan and welcom, speaking as a keen amature cook and a regular visitor to may fine resturants (stared and otherwise, including 15 in Hoxton) I am delighted to see a recognised resturant taking an intrest in producing deceint coffee (I have eaten in 2 and 3 star resturants who cannot make a deceint espresso!).

There are many challenges in maintaining techniques and equipment in a commercial enviroment but achievable none the less. You may find David Schomer's book 'Espresso Coffee Professional Techniques' very useful reading.

Once you have established good coffee there you can forfill my fantasy and spread the standard across the resturant world.

[lukas]

Welcome to TMC, Tristan!

[bruceb]

Great to have you on board!

[CakeBoy]

Welcome aboard Tristan, it is indeed good to see better restaurants looking to treat coffee as part of the overall experience. It's everyone off to sunny Cornwall then ....... except QC ..... he is probably already outside your door as we speak

[phil2spill]

Hi Tristan, welcome. Good luck with the upgrade, and please keep us informed

[Gouezeri]

Hi Tristan, nice to have someone from the restaurant trade here. If you do a search, you'll see that there are quite a few foodies here who are willing to pay good money for a meal, but are consistently disgusted by the standard of coffee served. Hopefully things are starting to change, even if slowly.

Without wishing to put the cat amongst the pigeons, the GeorgeW amongst the well endowed women, or the CakeMonster amongst the muffins, I'd like to reiterate that knowing your ingredients and suppliers is key. Labels mean nothing, you want to find out where your coffee comes from and when it was roasted; ie. the same that we now expect from food. People want to know the origin and freshness. I'm afraid you'll find that FairTrade doesn't have a particularly good reputation around here.

Anyway, nice to have you here, and I sincerely hope that the changes you are trying to make are well received by your customers!
D

[Tristan]

Thanks guys.

The Origin coffee that we use is 100% from Papua New Guinea (does that make it SO or does it need to be all from one farm?), it has the roasted date on the bag which tends to be about a week ago, which from what I can gather is acceptable. I'm told that the beans need a few days to release gasses before at their best for extraction, I guess that depends on the origin as well though.

monkey66, thanks for the book recommendation, I could really use a solid resource to get my teeth in to.

[bruceb]

The beans sound fine (assuming truth in labelling) from the quality. Will you be offering espresso and espresso based drinks? Other kinds of coffees? If espresso will you have properly trained baristi? If you ask for help/information/suggestions here you will get more than you bargained on because, as Dom (gouezeri) mentioned, very few of us have had acceptable coffee in restaurants.

I am personally delighted to have you here because I think a great deal of JO. He may not be a chef's chef, but in my opinion he has done more for the quality of home cooking than any 10 other TV cooking personalities. This in a time when people are increasingly forgetting even the basics of good cooking and have forgotten the necessity of high-quality, fresh foodstuffs.

If for no other reason than hat I wish you success in your endeavour to offer quality, good tasting coffee in the restaurant.

[Bertie_Doe]

Tristan wrote

The Origin coffee that we use is 100% from Papua New Guinea

Hi Tristan and welcome to TMC. I haven't tried PNG, it sounds dangerous, we'll prolly have to send our Hasbean chappy out their to do a reccy. I'm addicted to Haraar and MM taken to light Vienna roast, but PNG sounds exotic enough to give it a whirl one day.

Quentin

[toast21]

Hi Tristan and welcome!

wow i'm excited at seeing someone from 15 here... i've been to the london one (near old street) a few times and really like the idea of the restaurant helping people less fortunate. That said, i've only been there for breakfast so far.

Anyway, that's quite interesting about the beans you guys use... based on all the stuff around the place, I thought that 15 used illy beans and so i have to admit, i just order juice heh heh

As for the PNG... when I was back in Australia, a very good bean roasting company there only imports PNG and there are some with amazing quality. I'm assuming that the beans are imported green and roasted locally though? that would definately give the best quality...

As for time from roast, i found with the beans i get from HB here, they're very good after about 4 days. However with the PNG ones i've tried, they didn't seem fully developed after 4 days and seemed near optimum after about 5-6 days. It might be interesting to see if you can get the beans to arrive about 4 days post roast and check out the difference?

I'm hoping that i'll be able to make it down to cornwall sometime this year - i'd like to see the eden project as well as visit "padstein" . When i'm down i'll make sure to pop by 15 and say hi!

Cheers mate!

[BazBean]

Welcome to TMC.

Glad to see at leat a few resturant professionals are using coffee to its full capacity and not just a hot drink to finalise an evening with.
if an establishment takes this much effort for its coffee which is considered meerley a bolt on to other products Thats got to be amazing for the customers and perception.

hes a swred guy that mr Oliver to have got you on board, and high praise indeed to the reaserch and passion you have to serve the best you can.

[Bertie_Doe]

toast21 wrote

I'm hoping that i'll be able to make it down to cornwall sometime this year - i'd like to see the eden project as well as visit "padstein

Watergate Bay where C15 is located, is a tiny resort and one of the most spectacular in Cornwall - particularly when the 'surf is up' The 300 mile Southwsest Trail runs thru Watergate, so it's a good spot for a Winter w/end break, for the energetic.
Airsouthwest run a shuttle service, with Dash 8's to Newquay airport nearby and are fairly cheap if you book up about 6 weeks+ in advance.
My bruv and s-in-law visited us one week in March 05, ostensibly to see the Eden Project. We popped into Watergate and had coffee and cakes in a large hotel adj the carpark. No espresso on offer,filter stuff I'm afraid, a Rombouts/Kenco style to it - drinkable and thirst quenching, but no more than that.
It'll be interesting to know what Commercial machines, Tristan has installed in C15.

QC

[GeorgeW]

Welcome to the forum Tristan and it's good to have you here. I'm heartened by someone in the restaurant trade at last taking an interest in good coffee-making.