Welcome to Plancha Express, we have six quick summer stories about the weather, restaurants and hospitality during a heatwave:
- The kitchen at 50°C
- Menus for the heatwave
- Under water in Bucharest
- Your grill sausage may be working against you
- Austria is running out of Eskimos
- Five reels from inside the heatwave kitchen
The kitchen at 50°C
Last week, Hungary recorded its hottest day ever: 42°C in the northeast, above 41°C in Budapest, a nationwide heat alert, and water restrictions in several regions. The heat became enough of a public concern that Prime Minister Péter Magyar called on shopping centers, retailers and restaurants to offer drinking water to anyone who needed it.
For operators, the real story starts behind the dining room.
A 38°C day outside translates into 45–50°C inside a kitchen.
At that point heat stops being an inconvenience and becomes an operational risk: staff wellbeing, food quality, service speed, and ultimately profitability.
Governments are starting to treat it that way. According to a Reuters overview, France, Spain, Germany and Italy have introduced or strengthened rules requiring employers to adapt working conditions during heatwaves: extra breaks, adjusted schedules, drinking water, cooling. Hungary has no hospitality-specific heat rules yet, but employers remain responsible for safe working conditions under general labour safety law, and authorities routinely recommend free water, more frequent breaks, reduced physical workload and adequate ventilation.
Operator take: Ask every member of your kitchen team one question: "what makes your station unbearable above 35°C?", the fixes usually cost less than you expect, and better extraction and cooling may return more than your next oven.
