How To Grow Your Hospitality Business
Excerpt 6
What do I feel like eating tonight?

A well balanced menu should appeal to a cross section of diners and should be able to help the diner select the choice that they feel like eating. "What do I feel like to eating tonight?" Do I feel like fish or steak? Do I feel like something deep fried and crunchy or a healthy salad?" The menu must then offer a choice to meet this need without repeating the techniques or the commodities.

Unless the business is a specialist vegetarian café, most customers would expect to see one of the following proteins either as an entrée or main course:

• beef (sirloin, t-bone, rump)
• lamb (rack, fillets, rump)
• chicken (thighs, breast, drums)
• pork fillet
• fish, shell fish
• a vegetarian dish

Other specialist products that are popular are Cervena (NZ farm raised venison), duck, pheasant, ostrich and offal. If the clientele is not price sensitive then it is easy to include products like extra virgin olive oil, saffron, paua and truffles. Nelson Scallops, a New Zealand delicacy, often wholesales at nearly $40 per kilo and are therefore too expensive for most restaurants.

Paul Bertolli , a former head chef at Chez Panisse, describes a successful menu as "…a harmony of parts and a succession of individual dishes, each of which declares a mood, weight and style."

A good menu provides contrast because variety in cooking styles and ingredients keeps the consumer's interest. Within a dish there should be a variety of textures to satisfy the palate. If every ingredient is soft to eat, it does not challenge the palate. Use of colour provides impact and a natural garnish. If everything is brown or deep-fried, it is not so pleasing to the eye. Fresh and seasonal is the catch-cry of the chef. Seasonal goods are also plentiful and therefore cheaper to put on the menu.

Seasonality
In recent times, many products have become available throughout the year as people seek to meet the demand and product is sourced from overseas. The consequence of this is that when the New Zealand season arrives, the WOW is lost. Strawberries, basil, and "new" potatoes have all somehow lost that specialness. Frozen and tinned products have also cheapened the fresh product. Think of all those delicious fresh pineapples wilting on supermarket shelves because the novelty has been destroyed by the tinned version. Similarly, few restaurants would put peas on a menu because the frozen product has commoditised the pea experience. Fresh corn is sensational, but its specialness has been undermined by the frozen and canned product.

Nutrition
A dish on a menu should be nutritionally balanced. It is important to think in terms of the different food groups. The protein is usually the hero of the dish, and the vegetables are the accompaniment, while the carbohydrate is the filler. A meal should make the diner feel replete and to do this most effectively, each course must have some type of starch (bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, etc.) How many times have you asked for bread to mop up that delicious sauce languishing on your plate?

Getting to WOW
To create a memorable eating experience, the most effective way is to pick one or two ingredients in each dish and make a statement out of them. Less is more. Creating a hero of the dish and focusing just on that product will help you achieve a WOW. Repetition of ingredients destroys the specialness. Basil used in the entrée should not be used again in the main course. Repetition of cooking styles destroys the impact and may make the diner feel that the chef's skills are limited.

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