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As the name suggests, the Luxe SOP System is ideal for managing the workflow of standard operating procedures so naturally when it came to the galley the first thing we thought of was hygiene checklists. This makes it perfect for the galley’s all-important hygiene checklists and we include SOPs for hot holding, cold holding, work surface sanitization, thermometer accuracy checks and sanitization, and general cleaning procedures throughout the galley and its storage areas.

No galley expert myself (my brief stint was unsuccessful to say the least!), I sought feedback from Stuart Beard, an industry veteran with 21 years of hotel experience followed by 22 years as a Superyacht chef. I asked him what kind of content would be most beneficial to include in Luxe’s built-in Knowledge Centre. His first suggestion was that we add weight conversions, since superyachts are unsuitable for precise scale measurements due to their instability.

This struck me as bizarre, particularly given that Stuart was always employed on very large yachts. But when he provided me with an expert to explain, I couldn’t believe how much variation there was between 1 cup of whole wheat pastry flour (96g) and 1 cup of Perfect Pasta (145g) or Perfect Pizza (124g) blends. No doubt this was one of the factors that contributed to my failure in the galley! Consequently we include weight conversions for various flours, dairy, fruits & nuts, grains, cereals, vegetables, herbs and an assortment of other ingredients.

Continuing on this track, we added a Chef’s Resources section that includes temperature conversions, safe meat temperatures, sugar stages, a water temperature chart and the various factors that affect the boiling point of water (such as salt, hard water, weather and altitude).

All the surfaces typically found in a galley (such as stainless steel, granite, Corian, Amtico etc) are likewise covered in the Knowledge Centre. These entries can easily be copied and customized to allow chefs to create cleaning procedures based on the protocols recommended by the manufacturer (and/or by one of our world-class experts).

Luxe is also brilliant for equipment maintenance. Each galley appliance comes with manufacturer-specific care instructions that can be entered into Luxe for quick reference, and maintenance routines can be scheduled per the manufacturer’s instructions.

The Guest Pre-arrival checklist template is useful for making sure the fridges, freezer and ice machines are working and generally check through each piece of equipment to make sure it is functioning correctly in preparation for the heavy workload it will get with guests on board.

We had the privilege of working with Chef Tolan Dyer, whose guest menu ideas were always extremely popular in the SuperyachtOS online document library. He started his chef career in Neil Perry’s Rockpool restaurant in Sydney, one of Australia’s best and most awarded restaurants. He also worked in the almost-as-famous Bernardo’s in Noosa. In his subsequent eleven year career as a chef on private yachts, I worked with Tolan on a 73m, and he later went on to become head chef on the renowned 86m Cakewalk, setting up the galley from scratch.

We’ve incorporated his guest menu ideas into the Luxe Knowledge Centre—a life saver when you’ve been on charter for weeks on end and you’re too tired to draw on your own imagination. Tolan contributes a wealth of inspirational suggestions for buffets, starters, mains, desserts, petit fours and crew food.

Although we don’t plan on adding recipes to the Knowledge Centre, they can be added by users, and they work beautifully, as evidenced by the Cocktail recipes section in our Service Department module. It’s a great place to document the owner’s special chocolate chip cookie recipe or a charter guest’s favorite salad dressing.

Luxe works because you have the freedom to customize it to suit your yacht’s (and owners) specific needs, combined with quick access to an encyclopedia of reference material. We have even more exciting expansion in the pipeline for the Chef’s Resources section, so stay tuned for that!

Orignally published in The Islander https://bit.ly/2zERFKT