Case study · Restaurants & cafés
Unita Quattro, Ashford
Full restaurant fit-out as main contractor at Elwick Place in Ashford, including a purpose-built pasta workshop kitchen, and winner of the CEDA Award in the over £500k category.
Client
Stanhope
Location
Ashford, Kent
Project value
£500k+
Build time
10 weeks
Award
CEDA, over £500k
The brief
A full restaurant fit-out built around a working pasta workshop
Stanhope appointed Kent Commercial Kitchens as main contractor for the third and largest of three restaurant fit-outs at Elwick Place in Ashford. Unita Quattro is a family-friendly Italian restaurant led by head chef and restaurateur Damiano Vecchio.
The brief went past a standard kitchen install. Alongside a full commercial production kitchen, the restaurant needed a purpose-built pasta workshop where guests take part in hands-on pasta-making classes. The design had to support both high-volume service and a front-facing, customer-led cooking space, with a bespoke bar to match the front-of-house standard. The project ran during Covid, which added programme and logistics complexity throughout.
What we did
Main contractor, end to end, delivered in 10 weeks
Production kitchen
A Unita Quattro commercial kitchen for Ashford.
Full commercial kitchen designed around clear task separation, keeping cooking, prep and dishwashing zones distinct for a clean service flow. Cooking line built on Rational combi ovens, Blue Seal and a Giorik wood-fired oven, with refrigeration, ice and warewashing sized to match the covers. Bespoke stainless steel benches and prep tables fabricated in-house.
Pasta workshop
A dedicated, customer-facing workshop kitchen built around a Bottene pasta machine, so Damiano and his team can run classes without disrupting the main kitchen. Designed for visibility and participation, specified for hygiene and durability, integrated cleanly with the front-of-house service flow.
Bar and front-of-house fit-out
Bespoke bar build with a brass top and copper counter detail, fabricated in-house. Building works, internal walls, hygienic wall cladding, safety flooring in the kitchen and front-of-house flooring throughout. Extraction and HVAC installed and commissioned, all services works coordinated as part of the main contract.
As main contractor, our scope went beyond the kitchen package. We took the restaurant from shell to operational, sequencing every trade ourselves and handling the operational set-up most fit-outs leave to the client, including broadband and waste collection.
Equipment specified
Production, workshop and finishes
- Rational combi ovens — production cooking
- Blue Seal main cooking line
- Giorik wood-fired oven
- Bottene pasta machine — dedicated workshop
- Williams refrigeration
- Scotsman ice machine
- Maidaid warewashing
- Robot Coupe and Sammic food prep
- Capital cooking equipment
- Bioclad hygienic wall cladding
- Altro safety flooring, kitchen zones
- Gerflor vinyl plank flooring, front of house
The installation
Inside the finished restaurant
The outcome
CEDA Award winner, over £500k category
The restaurant opened on schedule after a 10-week build and continues to operate as a family-friendly Italian destination at Elwick Place. The project went on to win a CEDA Award in the over £500k category, industry recognition for the quality of the design, build and equipment specification across a project of that scale.
"This was a big project for us. A full design and build, and we started it during Covid which was not easy for anybody. Kent Commercial Kitchens handled everything, the design, the equipment, the installation, and they kept it on track even when things were uncertain. The kitchen works perfectly for our service. The project won an award and we are very proud of it. Working with Simon and his team was a pleasure from the first day."
"As Development Director of the Elwick Place Phase 1 project, I was on site and led many of the meetings with the team and I was incredibly impressed by the quality of their fit out work and how they moved all the projects forward at the same time. I found them easy to work with, prompt and extremely reliable. I wouldn't hesitate to work with them again."
- CEDA Member The Catering Equipment Distributors Association — UK's voice for foodservice equipment specialists.
- ISO 9001 · 14001 · 45001 Certified The only Kent commercial kitchen design-and-install firm certified to all three.
- F-Gas Certified Certified to handle and install refrigerants in commercial refrigeration and cooling equipment.
- Gas Safe Registered All commercial gas installations carried out by Gas Safe registered engineers.
- Part of Advantage Catering Equipment Kent's design, supply and service specialists since 2003.
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