Leonardo Da Vinci also dealt with catering equipment.
At least, He designed them (and probably never built them. Leonardo wasn’t in fact very consistent…).
In the Codex Atlanticus, the extraordinary collection of drawings and notes created by the artist/inventor par excellence, in folio 21 recto (dated around 1480) there is a rotisserie, moved by hot air, that moves a propeller positioned inside the fireplace, right there where the fumes and hot air convey.
In the caption, Leonardo wrote: “This is the proper way to cook roasts“.
Curiously, he wrote it “normally”, from left to right, not using then his own style of mirror writing from right to left.
In a nutshell, Leonardo had theorized an extraction hood that exploited the cooking vapours to operate a motion transmission system.
Let me be clear, no one wants to put themselves on the same level as the Genius of the Renaissance here…
But if you need an extraction system for your restaurant with heat recovery, condensation or other types of technologies, just give me a shout, and I’ll show you what Aluminox does!