Eleven Madison Park’s world-class plant-based pastries crafted with RONDO

Interview

What qualities do you look for when choosing tools and equipment for such a world-class kitchen? 

When we are choosing equipment for this restaurant, we want to have the best tools and equipment that we possibly can. 

It's important to us that it is reliable, durable, and can withstand multiple uses. That's the most important thing. We love the RONDO Econom because if we ever have a little bit of an issue in-house, we can fix it pretty easily. It's a very reliable machine that is simple and we love to work with. 

We have used it for the last eight years since I've been here. It's amazing, and it's a perk to have.

You’ve successfully executed a fresh take on the classic croissant dough. Where does that imaginative process start, and how did you come up with the Madison Square? 

One day, the Chef de Cuisine Dominique Roy and I set out to create something entirely different, embracing fun and experimentation. So, when coming up with the Madison Squares, we decided to highlight the lamination on the outside because it's really beautiful and creates a flakier exterior too. 

We also wanted to do something in that square shape because it was nice to be able to fill the Madison Squares. It just felt a little bit more versatile than what we were doing before. Then, with the exterior lamination, we were able to incorporate different colors, so we were able to have them look different from each other. People are excited to try something with a nice crispy exterior, and it's been a great success. 

What products are you using the sheeter for besides the Madison Squares? 

We use the RONDO Econom for sheeting any doughs. Sometimes we'll make tart doughs or any kind of canapés for our private events. We also use it upstairs in the Clemente Bar (a newly opened cocktail lounge built in collaboration with Chef Daniel Humm and Artist Francesco Clemente) for our tostadas as well as for our truffle tart downstairs in the EMP Restaurant bar. We use it for pretty much anything that we can, anything that requires consistency and even doughs. The sheeter is taken out daily and used for hours.

How does the RONDO Econom help facilitate your creative process when thinking about your next innovative pastry? 

Having a RONDO sheeter allows us to move a lot faster when creating laminated dough, it helps facilitate our creative process by being efficient in what we do. It opens up the world for being able to do things quicker and keep lamination as even as possible for really perfect results. Doing that by hand is almost impossible, especially with the volume that we do. 

It's great to have a sheeter because you don't have to focus on creating those perfect layers. You can focus more on the creative process and the flavors and what it looks like in the end. 

What has changed or improved because you transitioned to plant-based? 

We just started to think about food in a completely different way. When it comes to anything we do, we don't ever want someone to eat the food here or have any of the pastries and say, "Oh it's good for vegan or it's good for plant-based." We just want it to be delicious, and we want them to think that it's delicious because it is, not because it's plant-based. And that's always what we're kind of striving for more than anything else. 

We think about an ingredient that we want to work with and we kind of start there. How do we want to eat it: hot or cold? What flavors do we want with it? Then, we figure out slowly how to piece the dish together. 

It's an improved way of thinking about food, which has been exciting. Just learning about different plant-based ingredients and we found some awesome things, especially when creating our own butters. It's come a long way in the last four years, so that's also been exciting to work with. 

What is next for Eleven Madison Park?  

No matter what we do, even outside of these walls, we'll always love to have a RONDO. It's just an important part of things that we do. 

Again, consistency is one of the most important things companywide. When it comes to food, development, and even just our day-to-day. We would love to always use RONDO in the future.