The Fox is a popular gastro pub situated in the beautiful village of Crawley, near the historic city of Winchester in Hampshire. With their tempting table d’hote and refined a la carte menus The Fox prides itself on delivering a great pub and food experience, using the best quality, local seasonal produce to deliver seriously good food with fresh clean flavours that really pack a punch.
In 2018, The Fox underwent a major redevelopment and refurbishment, which is when Lenny Carr-Roberts (Chef Patron and Owner) turned to HCE to redesign and install their kitchen, stating: “We considered a number of other contractors but I knew about HCE for their quality and how good they are from a design and project management point of view. I also knew of a few big jobs they had completed nearby including James Martin’s kitchen at Chewton Glen and I had heard only heard good things about them.”
Having a state of the art, Athanor cook suite in the middle of the kitchen at The Fox was Lenny’s dream as it would bring real operational benefits to his team: “Athanor is like the Ferrari of stoves, and I’d been after one for years. I wanted to have everything built around the Athanor unit, so we could have four people cooking at once whilst also looking at each other and by doing so making the overall communication and flow in the kitchen better. HCE really took the lead on making this happen and I’m delighted.”
I would always recommend HCE because of their professionalism, their aftercare, their design team – which is a key thing. They aren’t just kitchen fitters; they will design it for you. I will happily recommend HCE
Lenny Carr-Roberts
Chef Patron & Owner
Upon reflection it was clear to Lenny that choosing HCE was paying off stating: “The key moment for me and knowing we had picked the right people was when we were told instead of ‘you can’t have that’ the HCE team came back we a positive solution saying: ‘you don’t need that, but this bit of kit will do it all for you and is cheaper and better.”
Designing and installing a perfectly flowing kitchen was paramount for Lenny, in order for The Fox to really excel. Discussing the job, he said: “The process took a few weeks with lots of meetings, drawings and CAD drawings being sent over to us with questions of ‘what do you think about this?’ which was really good. We needed to think about redesigning it at one stage and with HCE’s experience, even though I say I designed it, I designed what went in the kitchen and they designed where it went and more importantly got it all to fit, which was great.”
HCE’s teamwork, project management and professionalism came in to play during the fitting process as Lenny states: “Installation went like a dream. The beauty of using HCE was if you have a problem, they simply take it away, refabricate it and bring it back which was a great thing. What I wanted is what I got, and I would say I got even more.”
In a final thought about HCE and the refurbishment project Lenny added: “I would always recommend HCE because of their professionalism, their aftercare, their design team – which is a key thing. They aren’t just kitchen fitters; they will design it for you. I will happily recommend HCE, and I have recommended them to many people.”
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