Fontainebleau Miami Beach's F&B Operations

The Fontainebleau Miami Beach is undergoing a $1 billion renovation/expansion, and will re-open this summer. When complete, the new Fontainebleau Hotel & Resort, along with four guestroom towers and more than 1,500 rooms, will offer 11 food and beverage outlets (including various signature restaurants highlighting well known chefs/restaurateurs) and catering support for some 150,000 square feet of meeting and event space.

Derek Gale, Senior Associate Editor -- HOTELS Magazine, 12/1/2007

HOTELS: What is the overarching vision for the F&B department at the resort?

O’CONNELL: The overall vision is to create a simple, modern elegance. We want to rekindle the quality and lifestyle that were set into stone when the hotel first opened. We want to revisit our past and bring it into a new age, and use that as a core for who we are. We plan to set a new trend in style for resort experiences and culinary experiences.

Each of the 11 outlets is dialing into that concept in one shape or another. We are still finalizing product descriptions for each outlet, but we do have three different partners joining us (Alfred Portale, Scott Conant and Alan Yau with Gotham Steak, an Italian restaurant and a contemporary Chinese restaurant, respectively), and each brings professional talent and clout to the table. All of the concepts in the hotel will be owned by Fontainebleau, but the partners in the signature restaurants will be true partners—they will have the entrepreneurial freedom to bring to the table what they are good at doing. The other outlets will be positioned to complement those and solidify our reputation.

For example, the three-meal restaurant will offer pan-American cuisine and will define what the hotel stands for. If you go back to the 1950s, the hotel was defined as American Riviera. So we want to complement the steakhouse, the Asian and the Italian restaurants with something truly American and modern. So we will take the flavors of Florida, the Caribbean, Argentina and California and highlight those cultures.

HOTELS: How do you go about planning and developing the various F&B operations and outlets at a property like this?

O’CONNELL: First you identify which concepts you want to have—what style restaurants and how many. Then after you identify the concepts, you come up with a total product description, including theme, décor, meal periods, menu, staffing, target market, etc. Then, once you have a general idea, you can start to design how many seats you’ll have, the layout of kitchen equipment—you ask yourself what kind of infrastructure you need to support the structure. You work backwards.

KLEIN: When you do a project like this, you must think with the end in mind. You have a total vision and start building using critical paths with lots of detail. You start broad, and as you get closer, you hone in and drill down on the specifics. It’s a lot of time management and concept management, because openings come up on you very quickly.

HOTELS: At this point, six months ahead of opening, what are you working on? What keeps the three of you busy on a day-to-day basis?

O’CONNELL: Coming up with concepts or product descriptions and our vision, which grows and evolves as we move forward, so we have to continue stepping back and reviewing the original vision to preserve and make sure the changes we’re making don’t dilute the concept. It’s a constant push and pull, but a positive one.

KLEIN: OS&E, FF&E, samples of furniture and fixtures that will be in the restaurants, china, glassware, flatware, and making sure that not only from the chefs’ perspective but from the end user perspective there is functionality. It’s important with every process we go through to think about the entire operation. If a plate looks good, that’s great for the chef, but if it’s not operational for the server, the client will see a compromise in quality because the server is not able to carry the plate.

NOHSE: Menu planning and the hiring of key positions also takes more than three months, so we’re working hard on that to make contact with the right people.

KLEIN: Plus, separate and different than most openings, we are currently operating more than 400 [guestrooms], so we have a staff on board serving F&B to accommodate those 400 units. So we are not only planning but also operating, which makes this even more challenging.

HOTELS: How will this change in the six weeks prior to opening and post-opening? What will be different?

O’CONNELL: You can’t anticipate everything that’s going to happen… You just become more driven, you spend more time [on property]. It’s the nature of the beast to become part of the building itself for pre-opening and post-opening. No matter how much you plan, you can’t foresee changes and obstacles, so you must be able to think on your feet.

HOTELS: Sebastian mentioned planning and hiring of key positions—how do you go about recruiting and training a staff for a department of this size?

KLEIN: We’ll build the pyramid—we start looking at key positions (we’ve started already). The labor market is tough in Miami, and to be successful, we’re going to have to go across the United States and internationally and hand pick some of the best of the best. We’ve started doing that at high levels, and we’ll continue doing that in the next several months for key upper management positions. As a company, our strategy is to recruit on a large scale for the total hotel starting in March or April.

NOHSE: We have a six week training plan in place—everything from hotel induction and company mission and vision to complete training within the outlets and even dry runs. The training is in [cooperation] with our HR team.

HOTELS: Speaking of Sebastian, Sean, I know you were able to recruit him from the Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong, where he previously worked under you. Why did you want him to join you in Miami, and how did you get him to do so?

O’CONNELL: To do an F&B program this large, you must have people you can depend  on and people who understand F&B from an international perspective. You need people from everywhere so you can cater globally. The Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong was a similar property in terms of number of F&B outlets, so it was a good fit to bring Sebastian here because he understood a similar size operation. He has a certain skill level and skill set to bring all the outlets together. That said, obviously we have different concepts and different styles of menus and beverage programs, so for each venue, we will search out the best GM and best chef for that concept. Also, Sebastian will take over from me after the hotel is open, because I am continuing on to do the Las Vegas property.

Luckily, we had a pretty good working relationship [in Hong Kong] for the previous year, so all it took was a phone call.

HOTELS: What will the two of you have to do differently in Florida than you did in Asia?

O’CONNELL: Speak a different language.

NOHSE: The main focus will be on the training we need to do—it is one of the most critical things to get right in the pre-opening stage. The big difference [from the recent F&B reinvention at the Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong] is that there we kept our existing staff members during the reinvention, so the training was there and it was not as difficult to plan because we had the people around and could do a lot of work [with them].

HOTELS: Are there any special facilities or pieces of equipment that will be on property that really stand out from other operations?

O’CONNELL: Two things immediately jump to mind. Going back to the three-meal venue, we wanted to add drama and make it appealing so it stands its ground next to the celebrity chef concepts. So we identified the elements of the pan-American menu, and highlighted things that stand out. We will have a show kitchen with two prominent churrascaria machines, and right next to those we will have an American-style rotisserie. The whole back of that space will be covered in flames, so that will add a considerable amount of drama. It will be a great signature outlet.