Transforming office canteens into restaurants: ‘I’d nearly come into work because the food is so good’

There isn’t a deep-fat fryer in the kitchen of the VHI Food Lab cafe at the Carrickmines retail park. There aren’t any chips, burgers, chicken nuggets or lasagna on the menu either. And, there is a distinct absence of crisps and all the usual fizzy drinks in the cool cabinet. Instead, you can buy kombucha or flavoured juices. Bottles of water are placed on all the tables.

I’m here to chat with chef, Domini Kemp, who runs the cafe on behalf of VHI 360 Health Centre in Carrickmines, about the quiet revolution of office canteen food. “It’s about fresh, nutritious plant-centred food and quality sustainable protein. We put as many varieties of plants, herbs and spices into our salads, soups and condiments as we can,” says Kemp.

All the food is cooked from scratch with fresh supplies arriving each day. The menu – which is emailed to staff at 11am each day – includes one hot main meal, a choice of three or four salads, sandwiches and wraps and freshly made soup.

Kemp says those who choose to eat at the Food Lab cafe recognise that what they eat there makes them feel better than many of the offerings at the nearby fast-food restaurants. The bright ground-floor space with windows at either end also seems a long way from the basement staff canteens of some office buildings.

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Oksana Goljevacki is a radiology assistant in Medica. Although she lives five minutes walk from her workplace, she chooses to have lunch at the Food Lab as a break from her 10-hour shift. “I need good food each day. I have the hot meal if it’s not too spicy. If it is, I’ll have a sandwich or soup and a salad,” she explains. Staff at the health centre pay €7.50 for the hot food option, while walk-in office workers pay €14.50.

Orla O’Brien is an occupational therapist and health coach. “I love the food here. It brightens up the work day and gives me an energy boost for the rest of the day,” she says. Dr James Kennedy works on the medical team. “I’d nearly come into work because the food is so good. It tastes like restaurant food. And I sometimes bring home food for my wife who is on maternity leave with our nine-month old baby.”

Darragh O’Gorman, Hugh O’Connor and Martin McNamara work on client sites for a large technology company and often choose the cafe as their lunch spot. “I used not to eat vegetarian food but there are two or three hot vegetarian dishes on the menu here each week and it has encouraged me to try things that I’d never cook at home,” says O’Gorman. “It’s tasty, healthy, quick and more substantial than what you get in the fast-food restaurants,” says O’Connor. His colleague, McNamara, pays €9.50 for a chicken wrap with an aubergine and lettuce salad because he doesn’t like fish. The hot meal on the day we visit is a salmon fish cake with potato wedges and peas.

Suzi Clarke, a consultant in sports and exercise medicine, says that even when she’s not working, she checks the food menu. “It’s based on the Mediterranean diet with Asian and Middle Eastern influences. I love the fish chowder, the Mexican dishes and the salads with fruits such as peaches, pears and cranberries.”

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Don’t use the word canteen if you’re ever talking to Mark Anderson, the culinary director for Gather & Gather catering company, about providing food for office-based workers. “We don’t call them canteens because it conjures up an image of slopping out unacceptable food. Many people don’t have good memories about being served food by dinner ladies,” says Anderson in the first few minutes of our discussion on the transformation of many workplace restaurants.

Instead, he talks about the “food offerings” provided in workplace restaurants, coffee bars and hospitality venues. “Over 90 per cent of our food is cooked from scratch. It’s local, seasonal and made from the best ingredients we can source.”

Interestingly, the chefs working for Gather & Gather client sites – from law firms to IT companies to media outlets and third-level students – write the menus themselves. “It’s not like a restaurant or cafe experience where people are catching up in a relaxed way. The chefs have to park their egos and cook what the client wants. They have to be mindful that people go back to work after lunch and the food can’t be overly heavy to cause a slump in concentration,” says Anderson.

The emphasis is also on providing healthy tasty food when workers need it – and that can mean providing lunch from 11.30am for companies working on European time. Anderson adds that the counter layout of food also nudges people in a direction of choosing healthy options. “We have bowls of greens and leaves first which take up quite a bit of space on a plate, followed by simple salads, cold proteins (meats, cheese, etc) and toppings. Some of our sites offer assisted service or fully plated which also helps with portion control,” he adds.

Anderson has noticed that many workers in the technology sector are keen to embrace new food trends. So, chefs will experiment with reducing the main protein element of the meal while adding an extra vegetable or using a different starch. “We might build a meal around beetroot or heritage carrots and work out what protein goes with it, rather than starting with chicken, sea trout or beef and building the meal from there,” he explains.

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John Core, culinary nutrition lead for Sodexo is passionate about the food provided by the international catering company to offices and a small number of schools across Ireland. Core recently won the inaugural Paula Mee Applied Culinary Nutrition Memorial award upon completion of a master’s in applied culinary nutrition at the Technological University of Dublin (TU Dublin). The award, which recognised the vision and passion of Mee, who was a dietician and lecturer in nutrition at TU Dublin, was given to Core for programmes such as the #FullyFuelled four-week food challenge for 2,000 Sodexo staff. He also gives webinars and talks on healthy eating for sedentary workers.

“I’d start by explaining why as office workers, people aren’t expending the same level of energy as many of their parents or grandparents did, but that you still feel hungry every three or four hours,” explains Core.

He emphasises how when you eat well, you feel better and you sleep better. “We also encourage people to eat the biggest variety of food that they can. The better it tastes, the better it is for you and we make vegetarian dishes as exciting as we can,” says Core.

In his healthy eating workshops to office workers, Core stresses the importance of eating wholefoods rather than processed foods for gut health. “I always recommend people get seven servings of fruit and vegetables a day. Start the day with a good food decision and have a glass of water and piece of fruit. That means that if you’re stopping for fuel at a garage, you are less likely to reach for a muffin. Breakfast should be natural yogurt (with kefir if possible), frozen or fresh berries, nuts and seeds and then, have two or three salads at lunchtime,” suggests Core.

Reformulating recipes for chefs working in client sites is a key part of his job. “We have a standardised bank of recipes for chefs to choose from and I have been looking at the nutritional values of the most popular recipes, finding ways to replace mayonnaise with Greek yogurt, change sauces and batter crumbs on fish,” he explains.

Anderson says companies now see the food they provide for their staff as a “recruitment and retention” tool. “If they look after the welfare and wellbeing of their team members, they feel they will get it back,” he says.

Both chefs say it’s not unusual for office workers to take photos of their food and post their workplace meals on Instagram. “Our view is why should workplace food be any different to what’s served in the best restaurants in Ireland,” says Anderson, with no sense of irony.

However, both Anderson and Core agree that a huge proportion of workers are still working from home a few days a week, which leaves many workplace restaurants very quiet – particularly on Mondays and Fridays.

Core says some companies are offering free meals to staff as an incentive to come back into the office. A themed pop-up event with a focus on a particular ethnic cuisine also turns a work lunch into something a bit more special. “When we run these events, I’d research the nutritional benefits of the foods so for a Mexican meal, it’s about the polyphenols in tomatoes, the good fats in avocadoes and the complex carbohydrates in refried beans. Then the chefs would showcase a few recipes for people to try at home,” he explains.