If you have eaten out in Melbourne recently, there’s a good chance it was either at, or near an American style barbeque restaurant. It has been near impossible to miss the infiltration of smoked meat across Melbourne’s culinary scene, with the trend quickly sweeping across the rest of Australia.
Joining well-established favourites like Fancy Hanks, Bluebonnet and Le Bon Ton, the American BBQ trend continues to expand and has peaked in recent months with the opening of hipster hot spot, Up in Smoke, located on the outskirts of the Melbourne CBD.
This food craze isn’t uncommon and has come in waves but what makes this trend so unique may surprise you, and there is a new way for you to get in on the action.
Making the leap into smoking food for smaller restaurants and cafés is often impossible, as in-house authentic smoking is messy, costly, imposing a long list of requirements that are difficult to satisfy from ventilation to significant space and basically prohibitive for most restaurants. But a well-kept family secret has finally broken into the market, “how come this isn’t everywhere, and what are the options if you want to smoke your own food?”
The Helia smoker is changing the game for cafes and restaurants. The only option used to be big bulky charcoal smokers that are manually intensive and require someone to standby and monitor temperature changes over long periods of time – which is timely, costly and downright impossible for small businesses to do.
Unbeknownst to many, European kitchens have been smoking meat for over 25 years in tiny establishments and even parking lots, with this technology now making its way down under in the form of the Helia Smoker. The Helia Smoker “makes in-house smoking available to just about any food and beverage venue.” It solves virtually every issue presented by traditional smoking through smart German innovation and design.
Smoking seafood has never been easier than with the Helia smoker “what this machine brings is that it’s electric, the size of a large microwave and can be plugged into any regular power point. It acts not only as a smoker but a regular oven and slow cooker too” saving space, time and manpower.
Plug it in and walk away, the Helia smokes meat without the billowing smoke – it would be impossible to believe if it weren’t in fact true. It is highly portable, can sit under any commercial range hood or outside and can be used as a smoker, regular oven or slow cooker, even eliminating the risk of harmful carcinogens in food; something traditional smokers, unfortunately, carry the risk of adding.
