TigerChef

When planning the layout of your restaurant or bakery kitchen, the first question to consider is how to maximize the potential of your space for the utmost safety and efficiency. Restaurant floor plans should emphasize not only the basics of energy savings, such as keeping the refrigerator away from the oven, but the particulars of your kitchen. Depending on the nature of your building and cuisine, either multiple commercial work tables or a central prep station might work best for you. In any case, restaurant equipment must always be in instantaneous reach and it is imperative to scrupulously follow all health and sanitation regulations.

Specialized Work Stations

If you have the luxury of a reasonably spacious area in which to build your commercial kitchen, consider using separate areas for specific tasks. For example, you can set up one preparation zone for meat, one for fish, one for desserts, and so on. This organizational method not only prevents odors from transferring from one dish to another, it keeps your employees a comfortable distance away from one another. They will be close enough to collaborate easily while maintaining enough personal space to focus on the task at hand without worrying about literally running into a fellow team member. You may be able to implement this type of  ...continue reading

Many chefs overlook their restaurant salad menu, but this is a great place to capitalize on current trends, especially when healthful eating is so in style. A combination of the prominent food industry patterns of multiculturalism and higher nutritional value has pushed Mediterranean salads to the forefront. Mediterranean salad recipes often include such hearty ingredients as couscous, pasta, and potatoes, resulting in salads that you can serve as appetizers or main dishes. With a little imagination – and, of course, a mandolin slicer – you can easily create an endless list of original bestsellers. Here’s a little inspiration to get you started.

Salad Recipes with Pasta

One of the greatest appeals of Mediterranean salads is the satisfaction factor. Use recipes including pasta and cheese to highlight this strong point. For example, al dente tri-color spiral pasta perfectly complements halved cherry tomatoes, avocado, and pine nuts. Stir in some cucumber and feta cheese and compose a vinaigrette of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, and four varieties of pepper: red, green, black, and white. To ensure that the salt is well-mixed into the vinaigrette, first use a French whip to whisk the balsamic vinegar, salt, and peppers together. The acidity of the vinegar will disintegrate the other components of the sauce. Continue to whisk ...continue reading

Culinology® is a term trademarked by the Research Chefs Association. It comprises a discipline requiring intensive expertise in everything from food labels to enzymes to ingredient sourcing to commercial restaurant equipment. The Research Chefs Association offers the possibility of becoming a Certified Culinary Scientist or Certified Research Chef. This year, the American Culinary Federation sanctioned the discipline’s first professional competition. This exciting and innovative field appeals to professional chefs on many levels, and opportunities abound in this fairly recent addition to the food science and culinary industry.

What is Culinology®?

Mix food science with culinary arts and the result is Culinology®. The list of Continuing Education workshops on the Research Chefs Association’s website highlights some of the most crucial components of the discipline for professional chefs. The workshops, most of which include distance learning, cover such topics as food science, regulations, processing, packaging, sensory evaluation, and commercialization. Nutrition and creativity combine to bring the food service industry and the work of food scientists together in a whole new way.

2012 Professional Competition

The 2012 Professional Culinology® Competition, the first of its kind, gained more widespread recognition for the field, thanks to the support of the American Culinary Federation and other sponsors. Competitors shipped frozen versions of their entries – each consisting of three types of tapas – to San Antonio in advance and made the same dishes ...continue reading

The two most crucial aspects of a restaurant or bar business plan, cost-profit analysis and research, are only the beginning. Writing a business plan involves the use of a number of categories to explicitly outline your concept and strategies. From the menu you plan on offering to the amount you can afford to spend on restaurant equipment, each section of your plan needs to include as much information as possible.

3 C’s: Concept, Clientele, Competition

The foundation of your business plan is the clear expression of your concept. Explain your idea in simple, concrete terms. Next, explore socio-cultural and economic considerations. Outline in detail the tastes and budgets of your prospective clientele. Decide on a target audience that will best suit the style of your establishment and build the rest of your plan based on that audience’s needs. Whether the bulk of your clientele will consist of families, couples, singles (especially if you are opening a bar), truckers, businesspeople, tourists, or locals determines a great deal of your pricing and décor, for example. Also predict whether the lunch crowd will be composed mainly of different types of customers than the dinner crowd. Outlining a prospective menu or even including a full sample menu is an excellent idea at this point. Knowing your competition gives you an edge as well. Include a map of the area in which you plan to open your business and mark the locations of all similar eateries, bars, or catering businesses. This technique will show you clearly what you are ...continue reading

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

Having looked at the challenges involved in being a woman chef, we can now explore with greater appreciation the achievements of those who have surmounted the obstacles and opened the doors for what is becoming a golden age of female chefs. With an arsenal of restaurant equipment, talent, and above all, perseverance, outstanding women can succeed in the restaurant business. From Julia Child to Traci Des Jardins, these top-notch industry professionals have cleared the path for unprecedented numbers of female culinary arts school students.

Heroines of the Commercial Kitchen

A little-known but important fact is that the Culinary Institute of America was founded in the 1940’s by two women, Frances Roth and Katharine Angell. Their school continues to flourish and its website proudly quotes Iron Chef’s Cat Cora as saying that Julia Child referred to the CIA as “the Harvard of culinary schools.” Perhaps the first woman chef to become a true household name, Julia Child’s reputation has stood the test of time. By introducing genuine French cooking to homes across the country and around the world, she helped to gain normalcy for the idea of a female chef specializing in fine cuisine. Alice Waters, a veteran restaurant owner, became in 1992 the first woman to receive the James Beard award for Outstanding Chef. In France, Anne-Sophie Pic was the first woman in fifty years to achieve a rating of three Michelin stars. Traci DesJardins continues to inspire female industry professionals with her rare ability to balance both motherhood and multiple highly successful ...continue reading

The food service industry is a cutthroat environment. The intense competitiveness of this business requires toughness and savvy from any professional chef. Female chefs need to be especially well-prepared for these challenges since, although relegated to the home kitchen for centuries, women remain greatly underrepresented in the commercial kitchen. A woman chef should come into the industry with more than just a women’s chef uniform. She also should possess an awareness that success involves gender-specific issues. Whether the main factors contributing to this situation consist of innate gender differences or societal bias is subject to debate. The bottom line is that women chefs face unique obstacles and those who succeed in overcoming them deserve recognition.

Societal and Cultural Bias

Since many female chefs delay starting a family in order to first establish themselves in the industry, the question remains as to why such a significant gender gap appears. One of the keys to answering this question lies in understanding societal and cultural bias in the food service industry.

The high-energy, loud atmosphere of a hot line during dinner rush has become a male-dominated place. Investors may be hesitant to support a restaurant headed by a woman not because she is less capable but because of the fact that since for so long women have not made up a large percentage of professional chefs, people have are unused to the idea. Charlotte Druckman explores a telling concept in “Why Are There No Great Women Chefs?” in the Winter 2010 issue of Gastronomica: When ...continue reading

Chef Brad Halsten earned the $1,000 grand prize in the TigerChef Video Contest with his California BBQ Burger recipe, a mouthwatering and creative twist on the California burger that he serves at his restaurant, The Burger Dive. His expert combination of spices and meats sets his invention far above conventional barbecue recipes. Halsten’s video stood out from those of many talented professional chefs, whose submissions included restaurant equipment demonstrations, signature recipes, and cooking techniques. The runner-up, the Houston Zoo’s Executive Chef Shane Miller, receives a $250 TigerChef gift certificate for his Southwest Blackened Tenderloin.

The Winning California BBQ Recipe

The California BBQ Burger holds a place of honor on the menu at Chef Brad’s Billings, Montana restaurant, The Burger Dive. Halsten’s recipe contains an impressive array of ingredients, from coffee to Cabernet Sauvignon. His personality and obvious natural talent shine in his video, which features him performing each step of the burger-making process. Using a truly original combination of wine, spices, vegetables, and even ketchup, Chef Brad concocts a sauce that packs in a maximum of flavor while maintaining a natural feel. He crowns his burgers with thin slices of beef rubbed with coffee and a fascinating variety of spices. Halsten clearly devotes a great deal of attention to the quality of his ingredients, right down to the burger buns. The result is a recipe that the restaurant owner can be ...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