December 2009

Every chef wants their guests to LOVE their menu.  There are few nicer feelings than knowing that customers can hardly make up their minds when deciding what to order; everything just sounds so great! The opposite situation, where nothing on the menu really does it for them, is as devastating (in terms of ego and finances) as the first is excellent.

November 2009

The two most basic and important concepts that a chef needs to master are building flavors and the application of heat. By building flavors I simply mean how we make our food taste. A chef’s ability to decide how much salt, how much spice, how to balance acid and fat, his familiarly with some basic flavor profiles (ginger, garlic, scallions and soy for many Chinese dishes, tomatoes, garlic and olive oil for many Southern Italian dishes…) and his ability to create satisfying flavors, both subtle and bold will largely determine how good a chef he really is and how well-received his food will be. 

August 2009

Every restaurateur knows that there is a huge variety of ready to serve prepared desserts available to purchase, and he also knows that the cost of adding a full-time pastry chef to his payroll might very well not make sense. I’d like to propose that there is a middle ground that many owners would do well to explore. The skill set and repertoire of a professional pastry chef takes years to perfect, and many of the items they can produce are simply too much to ask of a probably already over-worked kitchen staff.

July 2009 Feature Article

There’s no need for a restaurateur to totally revamp their existing menu when they decide to add catering to their operation, in fact doing so would cost a lot of hard-earned popularity from their current fans. However, some thought needs to be given to every existing menu item to determine how, or even if it might translate to an off-premise, or even an on-premise banquet situation.