Effective menu planners know how to keep flavor, texture, temperature and seasonality in proper balance, and still toss in the occasional surprise.
A menu is more than just a list of food with prices. It’s a means of representation that expresses your property’s personality. It focuses your overall food-and-beverage operation and establishes your budget, while simultaneously promoting profitability. Done well, a menu can create an impression that lasts long after the waiter or waitress walks off with it—one that will make diners want to come back and try different items again and again.
Planning a successful and executable menu isn’t something that can be quickly sketched out on a napkin. It involves making a number of decisions about both style and content, and calls for some of the best and most creative writing any manager at a property must do.
The process starts with well-focused research that blends customer needs and wants with the most efficient food procurement and preparation techniques.
Assessing Their Urge to Splurge
Michael Matz, Executive Chef at Brandywine Country Club in Wilmington, Del., suggests first selecting an overarching theme for your menu, be it fine dining, grill or fast-casual.
“Narrowing your menu down to a specific type or style of cuisine will give you a better place to start from when culling recipes,” says Matz, who was recently brought in to take the culinary reins at Brandywine CC and help attract new members with better dining options. “From there, the menu needs to reflect your members’ tastes and preferences.”
Brandywine CC accomplishes this by offering a set menu of more traditional club fare like salmon, beef brisket and crab cakes, alongside daily rotating specials.
“Prices are a major factor in menu planning,” says Matz. “Our members are very sensitive to the price-value relationship. They need to feel like they’re getting the most for their dollars.”
Kevin Cottle, Executive Chef at The Country Club of Farmington in Connecticut, agrees. “Our members are extremely food-savvy,” he says. “We can’t just lay down a $30 menu and expect to fill the dining room every night.”
SUMMING IT UP
• Maximizing the impact your menu will make during the precious minutes that diners spend with it begins with a winning combination of food-and-drink offerings. |
To avoid over-priced menu items while still offering the highest-quality ingredients, Cottle and his team start the menu-planning process far in advance of selecting the actual items that will be listed.
“Because we offer a very seasonal menu, I work three, sometimes four weeks out, talking with vendors and purveyors to find out what kinds of product I can get, how much it will cost and how long it will be available to us,” Cottle says.
Nantucket Bay scallops, one of Cottle’s favorite ingredients, have a very short season and can be rather pricey. But thanks to his advance planning and carefully cultivated relationships with purveyors, Cottle was able to lock in pricing early in the season. “Once I know how much product I can get, I start to come up with ways to menu it,” he says.
That process takes a few days; during that period, Cottle writes up other seasonal recipes for Farmington’s contemporary menu, which rotates every two weeks and consists of seven appetizers and eight entrees. Once the menu is written and the product becomes available, Cottle and his staff—including the front-of-the-house staff—do a dry run.
“We give the waiters and waitresses a menu composite that lists all of the ingredients, the key words, and the best wine pairings,” says Cottle. “During the dry run, the kitchen is able to iron out the production part of the menu, to make sure the grill guy isn’t totally overloaded while the sauté chef is standing around.”
The practice session also helps Cottle keep a close eye on his food costs.
“During the dry run, we can refine the dish, shave off an ounce, change a sauce, or switch an ingredient to lower the cost without compromising the quality,” he says. “In a sense, the plate is continually evolving.”
Sounds Good Enough to Eat
Once dishes to be menued have been selected, it’s time to play the name game.
“Menu descriptions should make a guest’s mouth water,” says Brandywine’s Matz. “Don’t be afraid to explain what is in a dish, and use ethnic names if they fit, to add a bit of authentic flair to the menu description. But don’t go overboard. My predecessor used fancy French words in a barely legible script. And while it may have looked pretty on the page, it didn’t taste good.”
Dave Avery, Executive Chef at Oneida Golf & Country Club in Green Bay, Wis., uses his menu to highlight local, seasonal or unique products.
“Our members appreciate knowing where food comes from, so we use descriptors like Bay Farms spring mix salad or North Atlantic salmon to provide an ingredient lineage,” he says. “From there, we briefly describe the cooking technique: braised short ribs, grilled New York strip, pan-seared scallops.”
Avery stresses the importance of being brief and avoiding superfluous descriptors like moist, succulent or aromatic.
“Describe the dish, but don’t paint a picture of it,” he says. “Try not to be redundant, like saying everything is ‘served with’ or ‘set atop.’ And avoid useless words like ‘Mediterranean.’
“Focus on the important parts of the dish: protein, starch, vegetable and sauce,” Avery adds. “If there isn’t enough interest within those four components, the dish is flawed.”
Farmington’s Cottle takes the approach of “telling it to ‘em straight,” by keeping descriptions short and sweet.
“We’ll use certain descriptive words like caramelized, charred, or rémoulade that will intrigue the customer and get them to ask the server more questions,” he says. “This is the perfect opening for the server to sell the dish or recommend a house favorite,” he says.
Merchandising Value
Oneida’s Avery suggests designing menus in a way that mimics the dining experience. “Arrange items sequentially, with appetizers, salads and soups first, then entrees, then desserts,” he says.
Other subtle techniques for boosting menu profitability combine basic principles of marketing and salesmanship with crafty design tricks. “To draw attention to an item, put a box around it, include an illustration of it, and write lengthy copy about it,” Avery suggests. “Place the item in a menu ‘sweet spot’—either at the top of a column or the center of the right-hand side. The more you bring attention to that item, the more important it looks and the more you sell.”
Additional techniques, such as sending e-mails to members about dining specials, having chefs make tableside visits, or servers making house suggestions, will also advance the selling agenda, by invoking a sense of personalization.
“Walking the floor and making recommendations is the best merchandising technique I have,” adds Cottle.
Menus Set the Mood
Avery says he is still dismayed by the laissez-faire approach he sees many chefs take toward menu planning and design. “A lot of chefs overlook vegetarian items and good composed salads,” he says. “They also misspell everyday words, and make descriptions overly wordy.”
Cottle and Matz agree: Every effort should be made to ensure that the item ordered is the most profitable one on the menu, and that the menu itself highlights your food—and your property—in the best possible light.
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