Four Seasons - Part I

The Four Seasons Philadelphia.

The food line to the right is for room service only. Our tour of the kitchen was around 9:45am, so we were able to see some of the guest's breakfasts heading out. One plate was Eggs Benedict with Hollandaise sauce, garnished with chopped chives (I think). Cooking bacon was the strongest smell here!

The very end of a food line. I think this one was mostly for the Swan Lounge and breakfast. At the hotel, the food lines are separated into the different restaurants they serve, such as room service, the Fountain, and the Swan Lounge. Additionally, the lines are split into the Times they serve, breakfast and then lunch and dinner are together.

Chef preparing sandwiches for tea, which is served every afternoon at the hotel.

In one of the numerous refrigerators. Chef Gonzalez is explaining their standards for food and where they like to purchase food. While the Four Seasons has twelve raised beds on the roof of the hotel that provide fresh produce in the summer, in the winter, Chef Gonzalez likes to stay as local as possible. However, if a guest asks for something like strawberries, Chef Gonzalez will do his best to get whatever the customer requests.

Another food line! On the left in the picture is cheese-steak beef, thawing. One of the signature dishes at the Four Seasons are cheese-steak egg rolls. Instead of a filling of vegetables and or shrimp or chicken, the onions and beef of a cheese-steak are finely chopped and cooked together, then cheese is added to the mixture. The final product is rolled up in the traditional egg roll pastry, then fried and served. What a clever idea to showcase a pillar of Philadelphia cuisine in a new way!

A chef cutting American cheese for the filling of the cheese-steak egg rolls.

Another chef blanching pasta. Chef Gonzalez explained that the hotel either uses fresh pasta, made right in their kitchens, or frozen pasta for their hotel dining. For banquets, the hotel uses dried pasta. Coming in a later post: the banquet tour and a peek inside the pastry kitchen!