BIG CHILL

Having already worked @ Latitude in the Giant Robot pop up kitchen, I am fondly looking forward to being re united with my tent and chairs for the Big Chill.
This one looks to be not quite as large as Latitude but still massive.
We are looking after the VIP area so it promises to be filled with some interesting people and stories I am sure.

Latitude was a mixed bag for us chefs. The prep went all according to plan, all jobs finished on time and  as predicted, food quantity was spot on... until we went to pick up the hire van from Petit Forestiere.
Now I would nt normally name names, however the treatment, the service and lies merit a mention.
We had ordered four vans all to be used onsite as cold storage. Three fridge vans and one freezer van.
Now they made me and the three other boys wait.... for four hours before taking us to the vans. After four hours of waiting they took us to our vans which they were now deciding to wash.
So after we had waited for them to be cleaned  i took a look in the back of the vans
Two of them were ex sainsbury vans, which had a small cold/ chilled  room and 60% of the van ambient temperature. I knew these were nt suitable for the job, i asked the guys " hand on heart wil these vans hold temperature and cool the food throughout the back of these vans?" he told me "Absolutely sainsbury fill them up and leave them on standy until the next morning when the drive out and deliver. Just leave the door on the cool room open and it will chill the whole van. Oh and we have no other vans so take em or leave em. Oh and it s now 8 o clock the day before your four day event."
Nice guys thanks. So we had no choice but to take the vans. well we loaded the vans, Suspension on the vans was fu@£$d .
We had one van give out on us on the A12, the second lasted ntil the next morning and the freezer van never made it past 3 degrees even though it was set on -21. And the real joy was that as we were now 5 hours behind schedule we arrived at 4 am then to make maters worse security at the event would not let us in.
So finally rolled into position at 6 am, started work at 7 am...
after that we spent the next three days shifting food from the vans to the walk in fridge to the bar van, to the ice freezer truck. Anywhere that was cold enough.
So a warm round of applause to the worst refridgerated van company I have ever worked with in 14 years... well done chaps, and anyone reading this beware.
Oh and icing on the cake was that when we took the vans back the first thing that the guy from Forestiere said to me... not so sorry for all the hassle, or can t believe they ALL went down... no he said
and I quote: " what have you done to these vans, you know you are gonna have to pay a valeting charge!"
 despite all this grief the restaurant was a success... food was great for the festival, loadsa nice compliments, approx 6000 covers in four days.
Roll on Big Chill..... come and see us if you...