Heathrow cocktail bar’s ice pick: a Scotsman cuber and a Scotsman flaker

For top drinks presentation, The Commission goes for ice variety

Airedale uses Hubbard’s ice expertise for enticing bar

Airports can be nerve-wracking places for travellers.  What they need is somewhere to relax.  That’s why The Commission, the new restaurant and cocktail bar at Heathrow’s Terminal 4, is so popular.  A Drake & Morgan site, it’s operated by hospitality and food service company Delaware North and provides upscale casual dining and cocktails – the perfect ‘de-stress’ combination.  When it came to specifying ice machines for the new kitchen, the Airedale Group, the company project managing the installation, chose Scotsman, which is marketed in the UK by Hubbard Systems.

“This is a premium site and it needs premium icemakers that deliver premium ice, reliably,” says Richard Greasley, national accounts development manager at Airedale.  “The cocktail bar is a key feature of The Commission, aimed at enticing potential clients into the open-plan venue.  We designed the bar utilising the expertise of our partners, including Hubbard Systems.”

The Commission has two Scotsman machines – a high volume modular cuber that makes dice ice cubes, and a self-contained ice flaker.  “Presentation is very important to us, particularly for cocktail items,” says Nils Braude, operational director for Delaware North’s travel sector.  “We chose two ice machines, the flaker and the cuber, because different drinks require different types of ice.  We have a variety of specifications, both for our alcoholic and our soft drinks.  For example, flaked ice gives a real edge to the presentation of some of our cocktails.”

Space is at a premium in Terminal 4, so all the catering equipment has to be both compact and have a high capacity.  The Scotsman cuber (model MV1006) can produce up to 465kg, or 46,500 dice cubes, per day.  It’s sited on a FOL600 ice bin, which holds up to 245kg.  The ice it produces is the classic six-sided, 10g dice cube.  The flake icemaker, model AF124, is a compact unit that produces up to 120kg of flake ice per day and has an integral bin storing up to 40kg.  The production and storage capacities of both machines help The Commission cope with peak demand.

Reliability is another key factor in choosing catering equipment at The Commission, the more so because it is airside: there are lots of restrictions, and if something goes wrong it can take time to get an engineer through security.  “We need kit we can depend on,” says Nils.  “Scotsman is a market leader and it delivers every time.  It’s very good quality ice that keeps the flavour of the drinks true to what they should be.”