Question
Michael Baun
When crafting a menu, how do you decide which dishes to include and how to position them on the menu? What resources would you like to see someone consult to do this? Should I hire a consultant?
Answer
I'm not a hundred percent sure your setting for this, if you're talking about a restaurant, um, you know, you might want to hire a consultant if it's the first time you've ever done it. But quite honestly, um, looking at crafting a menu, even when I was running restaurants and creating the recipes for them and the menus, I would first and foremost look to see what would, what was in season to be able to get the most flavor out of those dishes, right? So I would break up my menus basically. Um, and some of them are micro seasons, right? So, uh, depending on what you have available at the moment to be able to get the most flavor out of them. Now spring you're gonna get a couple different, you know, versions of spring, early spring versus late spring. And then you're also gonna get summer versus late summer. And the harvests, uh, are for those seasons are quite different, and you're gonna get different vegetables that you'll be able to harvest in those. So depending on where you are in the country, there are seasonal guides for what would be fresh and what would be harvested at what times. And that would be my north star on what I would do to create recipes because then you can get the biggest flavor, um, you know, the biggest pack of flavor, um, depending on what season it's, so if it's, you know, like right now it's end of August, you know, uh, beginning of September tomatoes would be something I would feature on a recipe or in a menu right away to be able to get the big, full flavor of what a tomato tastes like when it's grown locally. And, um, you know, you get a big flavor. There's a huge difference between a tomato in December versus the time of year right now because, um, they're not being packed and shipped across the country to be able to get to somewhere. They're not growing. But if you can get them really close to the source and you can get them from a local farm, um, you're gonna get a lot more flavor out of something like that. So that is typically how I'm going to decide what dishes to include, um, on a menu. Now, positioning them on the menu is a whole different, you know, ball game. You can, you know, most people will start out with like an appetizer or soups or something like that kind of at the top and then do your entrees. You could do sandwiches as a separate thing. You could also, if it's Italian, you could do a pasta versus a pizza recipe or menus, you know, to be able to have them split up on those as well too. But, um, there are quite a few resources out there to be able to do, and I can't think of one online off the top of my head right now, but, um, you know, when it comes to creating a menu, think about seasonality things, they're gonna be able to deliver big flavor and to be able to have people come back to your restaurant to crave something, a lot of restaurants will have staple items on them. So something that they might have on the menu all the time, doesn't matter what time of the year is. So if there's a certain dish like that, you can always create things around that. Um, and also think about things that you can, um, use in multiple, uh, menu items, right? So like if tomatoes are being used in something like a, like a bruschetta, you know, like where you have a crusted bread with tomato and different herbs or something on it, um, you probably wanna use tomatoes in a different entree as well too, besides just the appetizer. That way you're using, um, the same ingredient in multiple dishes so you don't have 110 different ingredients, um, you know, that you have to be able to keep track of and keep fresh, uh, that way you can kind of narrow down how many ingredients you have to be able to use in multiple, uh, recipes. Definitely helps with budget on that end as well too. Um, but those are a couple tips to be able to get you started on crafting your menu. Just think seasonality is probably the best way to be able to create the menu.
