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Food presentation has an enormous effect on your customers’ impression of your restaurant. Knowing how to garnish and what size your plates should be, and even making creative use of your pastry cutter and other restaurant equipment gives you a definite edge. The way you plate your menu options influences your clients’ feelings regarding the quality of your cuisine and even how satisfying they find the portion sizes. Fresh ideas for platter presentation are a necessity for keeping your restaurant ahead of the rest.

Main Dish Food Presentation Techniques

The first step to a gorgeous platter presentation is ensuring that your plate and serving sizes are proportionate to one another. Square or round plates generally prove to be easy to work with, and white plates provide a simple way of enhancing the effect of your dish’s colors. Odd numbers of specific food items – three stalks of asparagus, for example – produce the most eye-pleasing results. Avoid piling too much total food or an overwhelming amount of separate items on each dish. Pay attention to the colors that you use and the various shapes and designs you can make with your sauces. Mix the consistencies and textures of the food so that both soft and crunchy items appear. Garnish with a fresh souvenir of an ingredient in the dish, such as a basil leaf, ...continue reading

Learning to properly serve customers with food allergies can not only save your restaurant a lawsuit, it can save a customer’s life. Assured prevention of an allergic reaction can only be accomplished by protecting the client from any contact, even indirect, with the offending food. This does not mean that you have to become a dairy-free restaurant or offer a fully gluten free restaurant menu, but some precautions are vital. Keeping up-to-date ingredient lists, fastidiously washing all restaurant equipment used on or near allergic customers’ orders, and appointing a team leader to deal with allergy questions are just some of the steps any responsible food service professional should take.

Allergy-Friendly Menu Options

Ensure the availability of safe dishes for allergic customers by educating yourself about common food allergies and intolerances. Ninety percent of food allergies are attributed to peanuts, tree nuts, shellfish, fish, milk, wheat, soy, and egg. Common food intolerances that often cause allergy-like symptoms include lactose intolerance and Celiac disease. Place a notice on your door or menu requesting that guests inform you of any food allergy or sensitivity that they may have. Prepare an ...continue reading

Food industry professionals know that soup is among the most profitable menu options. Still, it is often relegated to appetizer status or tacked onto specials as a side dish. Many chefs miss the opportunity to make soups that stand on their own. With the right restaurant equipment – most notably a double boiler – and a few simple changes to your soup recipes and soup-making technique, you can reap the benefits of this low-cost, high-profit restaurant dish while still offering your customers a satisfying main course.

Hearty Restaurant Soup Recipes

Forget thin, watery appetizers. Serve your clients piping hot, cheesy French onion soup with homemade croutons rubbed with garlic and drizzled with olive oil and herbs. Also consider meaty varieties of soup, like Italian Wedding soup or a traditional goulash. Keep in mind, however, that many restaurant-goers these days are looking for healthy options. Adjust your recipes to include leaner cuts of meat or less fatty cheeses and be liberal with the vegetable content. Add thick noodles or rice to existing standards on your menu. This technique keeps costs low while significantly intensifying ...continue reading

Restaurant marketing presents more challenges – and opportunities – today than ever. Customers are regularly bombarded with choices, discounts, promotions, and deals, making the job of staying competitive a tough one. At the same time, eatery owners have a multitude of outlets for advertising for restaurants. From good old-fashioned word of mouth to email lists through which you can offer personalized coupons, your business will benefit enormously from your awareness of advertising opportunities and your fair, honest implementation of marketing techniques.

Word of Mouth and Social Media Advertising

One of the most productive ways to increase your restaurant’s popularity is through the use of social media and word of mouth. First and foremost, your restaurant should have a website. Include your menu and prices, eye-catching but tasteful design, and all current promotions. This is one place to make room in your budget for a professional. The cost of hiring an expert should pay for itself within a very short amount of time. ...continue reading

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Whether you are in the process of starting a restaurant or can boast of many years of business experience, watch out for business mistakes that have destroyed the potential of many food service establishments. First and foremost, from the appliances in your kitchen to the paper towel dispensers in your bathrooms, every purchase should be of the highest quality. Another key to business success lies in hiring the right staff – so know the correct qualities to value instead of relying merely on applicants’ prior experience. Finally, always have an up-to-date, viable restaurant business plan and follow it carefully.

A Restaurant’s Most Critical Investments

Your restaurant equipment and your staff determine the success or failure of your business. Many food industry professionals make the sad mistake of underestimating the importance of these aspects of the business. The instruments on which you prepare and in which you store your cuisine are not the way to save a few extra dollars in the short term. Make sure you invest in the best quality, most durable options on the market. Tough, professional grade metals like stainless steel and copper must become the foundation of your commercial kitchen. Purchase solid restaurant equipment made by trusted brands to ensure long-lasting appliances that will achieve the most impressive results. ...continue reading

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Restaurant waste is more costly than perhaps any other part of being a food industry professional. Buying or renting commercial space, purchasing restaurant equipment, and paying top-notch staff all increase your likelihood of turning a great profit. Food waste, on the other hand, is simply that: waste. Food waste hurts your bottom line and the environment. Here, some simple yet highly effective methods of waste reduction for your commercial kitchen.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - Ingredients

One of the most effortless ways in which to reduce food waste in your restaurant is to prevent it. Gauge how much your customers tend to leave over after certain dishes. If there are menu options that consistently result in a great deal of waste, you are serving too much. Cut down on the serving size just enough so that your customers will still be satisfied but will be able to finish more of the meal. Then, freeze single-serving portions of everything that you can. This practice lends you more control over portion size because you will see with more precision how much you put on one plate in comparison to other servings of the same dish. Tailor your menu in such a way that you use ingredients that you normally throw away. For example, if your restaurant serves sushi, you know that the ends generally do not lend themselves to attractive presentation and often become waste. ...continue reading

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The foundation of many desserts is a crisp, flaky crust or tender dough. As a professional chef, you need to make sure that you achieve consistent results to satisfy your customers every time. Using the right baking techniques and bakery equipment will help you attain this goal. Whether you serve your guests cream puffs, éclairs, pies, or tarts, use these tips to produce the highest quality dough and crust.

Choux Pastry Tips

Making choux pastry, the dough used in cream puffs and éclairs, is a delicate art. One of the most important but often skipped steps in the process of making this particular kind of dough is that of weighing your ingredients. Use a bakery scale to ensure that your proportions are always exact and that the resulting dough will be perfectly light. Once you have mixed the dough, avoid letting it dry on the stove. Letting it dry like this is another common mistake: the water makes the dough rise. During baking, it is even more crucial than for other types of fare not to open the door as the dough needs to rise at a precise rate and leaving the door closed prevents the pastries from falling. ...continue reading

Induction cooking is one of the most exciting advancements in professional kitchen technology, and lately it has become quite affordable. An induction cook top allows chefs to work on a surface that stays perfectly cool even as it heats a pan and its contents faster and more evenly than traditional gas or electric ranges and ovens. Since these ranges work through the use of an electromagnet, any restaurant equipment that is magnetic should be suitable for induction cooking. Considering all of its benefits, any restaurant will profit from investing in such a product. To decide which induction range is best for your commercial kitchen, think about your specific needs relating to the type of food your chefs prepare and how much space you have available.

Benefits of Induction Cooktops

For the professional chef, one of the biggest advantages of induction technology is the reduction in cooking time. Especially during lunch and dinner rush, cutting cooking time by twenty to thirty percent on average – and sometimes in excess of fifty percent – means quicker service and happier clients. Make sure, however, that you train your staff in the particulars of this type of cooking since water or oil will heat so quickly that ingredients need to be chopped and ready when the liquid is poured. ...continue reading