# Small restaurant - one man show: reassessing my approach



## recky (Oct 15, 2012)

Hi fellow chefs and/or restaurant owners,

now that another busy summer season is over I'm reviewing processes in the kitchen and pondering how to improve things, especially with respect to the workload that nearly landed me in a burn out clinic quite early on in the season.

My set up is a small, 25-cover restaurant with a 40-cover beer garden (an either/or situation - there's rarely, if ever, 65 covers being served simultaneously) and a small menu, i.e. 2 - 3 starters and 5 - 6 mains. The food is regional and seasonal; I use a handful of local suppliers/producers, which entails that I don't get any deliveries. In the summer season, I have to make 2 to 3 trips each week (each a 45-mile round trip) to pick up meat and vegetables, as well as a 70-mile round trip to the nearest cash and carry at least every other week. Last year, the restaurant was open from 11:30 am to 10:00 pm, but this past season I stayed closed in the afternoons, because business is slow during that time and often I simply couldn't keep up with the prep work for evening services.

Due to the small size of the restaurant, I can't afford another cook, but I do have a dishie on weekends who peels potatoes and cuts fries, washes lettuce etc.

I'm essentially trying to come up with a way of reducing stress and the workload and might even reassess the basic concept of the restaurant. As it is, the food served is quality home-style, often with a touch of the Mediterranean; a typical menu might include a pasta dish, a steak, fries and salad, schnitzel Viennese, fries and salad, duck breast with veg and homemade gnocchi (or similar), lamb kebabs with tabbouleh and a vegetarian dish. Although I'm not keen on the steak and schnitzel, they are on almost all the time, because the locals are extremely conservative. At the same time, the tourists love anything Mediterranean that has the "locally grown/raised" stamp on it (my lamb, rabbit, pork etc.). It continues to be difficult to please both distinct camps. Tourism constitutes a high percentage of my income, yet I can't survive winters without the locals.

I would like to pick your brains for ideas how I might be able to reduce ticket times (longish waits can be a problem when it gets busy), the a la minute workload and such like, so that I can keep customers happy while retaining my mental and physical health.

Thank you guys and gals!

Recky


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## beastmasterflex (Aug 14, 2013)

Give the locals what they want, but do it so well the tourists will love it (Locals want S.O.S, you dry cure the beef yourself, everybody wins). Depending on your price point you may be trying to do to much. It seems like you also are trying to do fine dining, casual fine dining, this might not be what your locals want, and tourists wanna go to the local spot. There's no way of knowing any of this for sure without knowing your operation.


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## recky (Oct 15, 2012)

Thanks for your reply, beastmasterflex! My place is actually far from fine dining - it's a pretty rustic affair, very French bistro style with bare tables, an open kitchen etc. Yes, perhaps I am trying to do too much. Most recently I have been looking at a couple of higher-end (ethnic) fast food places as well as the traditional Lyon 'bouchons', i.e. small restaurants where quality food is served quickly and efficiently. Likewise, I found a link on this forum to an ancient piece on NYC restaurants with tiny kitchens (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/24/d...r-kitchen-is-small.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm). All of this I have found quite inspiring.

I think I need to design my menu in such a way that items can be plated quickly and are made up of as few components as possible. That's the kind of advice I'm looking for, I guess. I have basically answered my own question here, but I'd love it if you guys might be so kind as to offer your angles on this, different perspectives, how you would go about things if you were put into my shoes.

Thanks a lot,

Recky


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## beastmasterflex (Aug 14, 2013)

Here's a place I trailed at once. http://www.thevanderbiltnyc.com/

Big on homemade sausage that they also sold at market. Good for a beer garden type venue. All the dishes are very quick on the pick up, however they had some specialized equipment for the sausage making. This example straddles the fence of somewhat universal good cooking and a german brat haus type thing.


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## cheflayne (Aug 21, 2004)

Could you replace the steak with a dish such as sauerbraten and the schnitzel with baeckoffe of pork, or maybe work in a jaeger eintopf? Dishes that can made a day or two in advance and that actually improve with a rest and marry period.


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## beastmasterflex (Aug 14, 2013)

What do you sell most in the beer garden if you don't mind my asking?


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## recky (Oct 15, 2012)

Thanks for all your replies!!! A lot of what you say is actually feasible, yet it hadn't occurred to me.

beastmaster: during the summer season, when the beer garden can fill up rather quickly, we sell whatever is on the menu. To a large degree, we have a monopoly in the village in that the only competition is two kebab/pizza shops. So anyone passing through who isn't keen on cheap fast food can't avoid us. I have tried to keep the lunch menu small and quick, but I still have to please both camps, tourists and locals.

It's not that schnitzels are necessarily carved in stone, but they are most definitely a hit with the locals (and some tourists), as I do them the way they used to be done, i.e. properly homemade, including hand-cut fries, which is almost an extinct art in these here parts. I sell them at a premium, but no complaints. Despite my dislike of them, I don't think I can get rid of them, but maybe I'll keep them on as the only a la minute item, dropping the steak.

cheflayne, that's exactly the stuff I've been thinking about - tasty, flavoursome country fare that can be prepped far in advance and reheated without compromising quality. Even better if you can produce such things in single-portion kitchen-to-table dishes and pop them in the oven to order.

A bit fast-foodie, perhaps, but what kind of dishes might be held in a steam table for a couple of hours without doing any damage to them?

Thanks,

Recky


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## cheflayne (Aug 21, 2004)

Recky said:


> cheflayne, that's exactly the stuff I've been thinking about - tasty, flavoursome country fare that can be prepped far in advance and reheated without compromising quality. Even better if you can produce such things in single-portion kitchen-to-table dishes and pop them in the oven to order.
> 
> A bit fast-foodie, perhaps, but what kind of dishes might be held in a steam table for a couple of hours without doing any damage to them?


Stews hold good in a steam table, but an even better option with them is to heat to portion order in a saute pan. If you start to get backed up with orders, initiate the order in the saute pan on the burner and then put the pan in the oven to finish while you get another going. Out the door in no time, no loss of quality, no issue with holding times/temps/chilling/reheating/etc. It is the same thing I do with soups, braises,or anything with a fair amount of liquid that I have to make ahead of time.


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## beastmasterflex (Aug 14, 2013)

http://themeatballshop.com/menu

Check out this place, mostly do meatballs, hold great in a steam table.

There's isn't a whole lot that holds well in a steam table, pasta sauce is pretty good, could always do fresh pasta and add value that way, but could also be a quick pickup. Fresh pasta is good enough I think, that at a decent price point you could get away with serving only this.

Also check out, 99 miles to Philly, they pretty much only do cheese steaks, great place, I miss it so badly. Its located 99 miles away from Philly... Easy to pickup, everybody loves them, can add value by making buns, and decent profit margin.

http://99milestophillyeastvillage.c...5.r?QueryStringValue=TC2Xm2z+XUVOGdaw9yhKWw==


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## beastmasterflex (Aug 14, 2013)

You could always stick a BBQ or grill in the beer garden and only serve sausages. Keep the covers down for your kitchen to the 25.


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## recky (Oct 15, 2012)

Thanks a lot again! A lot of food for thought here. I do have thing for places that specialise in something rather than trying to be all things to all people, such as the aforementioned meatball restaurant, as long as it's done well.

So far, I have had an ever changing menu in tandem with the seasons and availability. A specialist place can't really do that, except for specials, as customers expect a consistent offering. That would be my problem with specialising in, say, meatballs. However, the idea is quite appealing, as I often feel hounded by having to constantly reinvent my menu.

So as you can tell, I'm currently very undecided... [emoji]128521[/emoji]


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## recky (Oct 15, 2012)

So while cleaning Brussels sprouts I was thinking that I should play to my strengths while simplifying the basic concept. One of my fortes is innovative and/or interesting pasta sauces, either "stolen" around the world or made up myself. If I did, say, six different pastas including one using fresh homemade tagliatelle, a veggie lasagne or similar, as well as a one-pot braise, a schnitzel Milanese-style and something else, as well as a couple of interesting starters, would it appeal to you? I'm not talking cheap and quick, but upmarket and quick. What do you think?


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## beastmasterflex (Aug 14, 2013)

Id include spatzel, fresh pasta kinda says upmarket all on it own.


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## foodpump (Oct 10, 2005)

You gotta think like an accountant now, cold and harsh.....

If you're spending x amount of time shopping, an y amount of time prepping, then out comes the axe. 

And the axe says:  TAGES MENU

Put, say 60% of your labour into daily special 1 and 2,  and 40% into the a'la carte.  In other words, cut back on the a'la carte.  This in no way will affect the quality of your food.  And word might get around that every Tuesday you have Rindsschmorbraten, but only am Dienstag,  then that's pretty good too.

I dunno, it's something to think about,

Oder?


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## recky (Oct 15, 2012)

foodpump,

that's kind of what I've been trying to do, although, admittedly, half-heartedly. My problem with that has always been the unpredictability of my day-to-day business due to the fickle tourist crowds. You get like three pretty good Tuesdays in a row, start thinking there's a pattern to it now, and the forth and fifth Tuesdays are suddenly extremely slow, and everything shifts to a Thursday. So if I did _daily_ specials (as opposed to weekly), I could never predict the amount of food to produce. It's been driving me crazy!


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## chefatrh (Feb 23, 2011)

Recky,

Your place sounds similar to mine.  Small place, big summer, slow winter, kitchen size of a bathroom.  We consider our selves upscale casual.  When I design menus I make sure I have a good mix of low impact/attention items and those that I have to show love too.  Low impact is lamb shanks/Osso Buco/lasagna/Coq Au Vin/crab cakes.  All get put on hot plate, tossed in convection for set time and plated.  Scallops, steaks, fish (2 or 3 summer/1 option winter) might take more.  Apps/salads same idea.  Crab dip, spring rolls, pigs in a blanket (home made sausage and dough), stuffed squid, shrimp gambas all require little or no time on my part.  Salads, oysters, made to order mozzarella another story.  I will have 4/5 apps, 2 salads, soup, 6/7 entrees any given night.  I have moved\trained a dishwasher up and turned him into a sous.  Started him at $8.50 to see if he would work, moved him up fast to show appreciation.  I have him come in on Wed (closed wed/tue) and prep a list of low end stuff for 4 hours (stuff that is easy, chopping, mixing, etc..)  Being small and seasonal I can have people (sous/DW/waitress) come in or not depending on reservations.  I also will send them home when it is dead. 

As far as supplies, I used to make weekly runs to Sams and Rest. Depot (try 185 mile round trip).  I now look back on those days and wonder if I was on crack  Making my Lexus into a pickup is not why I started this place up.  Still hit them up every couple/three weeks for specific stuff I like there better (thick bacon from sams/chicken leg qtrs and lamb/veal from rest depot) but I am on a cash basis with all my other guys, which I like.  No when I travel each week it is to the local farmer/seafood guy.  Just a thought!

Hope this helps,

Q


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## recky (Oct 15, 2012)

ChefAtRH: yes, sounds very similar indeed! In the past I have often been somewhat too ambitious, i.e. too many components per dish, which takes up too much space on the hob and requires too much attention, plus having to do side salads etc. No wonder I lost 20 pounds in the first season. Lack of refrigeration space has also been one of my problems, so during busy times I've always had to buy in veg and lettuce for a maximum of two or three days at a time. And I've never been able to store larger amounts of prepped/cooked stuff. I NEED to find space for another large fridge somewhere!

Do you do lunch service as well as evenings? Although I do close the kitchen in the afternoons oftentimes on a busy weekend lunch service hangs over well into the afternoon and I run out of time for prepping the evening. A constant nightmare...


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## brandon odell (Aug 19, 2012)

I support anyone who wants to limit their menu to keep things fresh and fast. Your menu looks pretty small already. Maybe there are too many ingredients on the plate as you suspect, or maybe you just need help. 65 seats is too much for one cook. In a full service kitchen with freshly prepared dishes, a line cook should be doing about 25-30 plates. In some place like an Italian or Mexican restaurant where many of the ingredients are premade, you might double that. 65 covers for one guy doing everything himself in a kitchen with fresh made dishes is too much though. That would burn anyone out. Based on the dishes you mention that you make, it seems to me there should be money for another cook on busier nights. ChefAtRH sounds like he has a reasonable approach. Train some people that can work part time when you need them. Schedule them on the usually busy nights and send them home if it doesn't get busy. Train the dishwasher to do double duty. In your size restaurant, you should be able to easily afford two cooks and a dishwasher on a decently busy day. The challenge is figuring out how to set up a small space so you aren't running over each other.


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## chefatrh (Feb 23, 2011)

Recky,

LOL, I found your 20 pounds and maybe a little more.  Stress (and my wives desserts) add pounds.

We have rented space from a retail store behind our shop.  I have a 3 door reach-in,  a couple of old house fridge/freezers, and 3 big shelving units for dry goods, wine and such.  Could not do it otherwise with a complete lack of space in our building.  It is something I do not advertise to the Health Dept.  We pay with a gift certificate each month.

We do lunch and dinner weekdays and also breakfast on weekends.  Open Thur-Mon.  Wife does breakfast, I do lunch/dinner.  She does desserts, baking, some soups, and works FOH for dinner.  Use to work in kitchen with me for dinner but I was in danger of getting accidentally stabbed 12 times so we reworked that moment.  Dinner is so busy during summer we need her at FOH anyway, being the face of the restaurant (she is ex-home coming queen/prom queen so it is a good face, mine.......not so much) and selling wine.

Lunch and breakfast help build our dinner business. We make everything from scratch (corned beef/turkey/roast beef/sausage/quiches/scones/ice cream) and can turn the conversation into a "well you should see what we do for dinner" moment quickly.  Dinner is where the money and margins are.

We close from 3 to 5 to prep.  Use to be open all day, but as you are finding out, that cuts into prep time.  Small kitchen, bad dinner prep = shitty service.  Plus, you need to sneak 20 or 30 minutes to just sit and relax.  The extra 4 or 5 lunch seats are not worth it.

Good luck,

RH


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## mdal2684 (Jan 1, 2014)

If you are getting fresh lamb, why not go with a well thought out lamb burger? It can executed quickly for a lunch special and easy to prep.


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## beastmasterflex (Aug 14, 2013)

I love breakfast for the margins. Do you open more days in you busy season?


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## recky (Oct 15, 2012)

ChefAtRH - over the winter I've put on 10 of those 20 pounds again, but I bet they haven't miraculously disappeared from your hips! ;-)

If there's one thing I don't want to do it's breakfast, as we have three bakeries/cafes in this small village all thriving on breakfast. From April to October we're open for lunch, and the first season we stayed open all afternoon. Sometimes we stayed busy, especially on Sundays, where the evenings can be quite slow as the day trippers/tourists leave town to travel back home, so even now that we're closed from 2:30 - 5:30 pm I often play things by ear on Sundays, hoping to find an hour or so to prep for the evening service. It's not ideal, but we have to make the most of our summer season.

Thankfully, my restaurant is in a prime location in the centre of the village, in an old farm house with a very attractive beer garden out the front, where it's sunny all day long. Tourists WILL inevitably find us, and as long as they're in the market for local, seasonal food, they will come to our place. We also have the best coffee in town and serve great crêpes. As for the latter, they _can_ be the bane of my life. When the kitchen is busy they bring everything else to a standstill, as you simply can't leave them unattended for even a second. _One_ crêpe isn't a problem, but a number of them during a busy service do increase wait times significantly. That's why I'm thinking of abandoning crêpes during services.

mdal - Incidentally, I have been thinking about reintroducing burgers. I used to do them for a while, including goat burgers, and they sold like hot cakes. I even had buns baked by the local bakery. I dropped them again, however, because business is so unpredictable here that I started cooking them from frozen and I wasn't happy with them. Likewise, I could only buy the buns in larger batches as they were baked specifically for me, so I had to freeze them as well, thaw as many as I thought I'd need and chuck what I didn't sell. If I needed more than I had taken out of the freezer, I had to defrost them in the microwave, and the results were less than satisfactory. Now, if you don't mind me asking you guys: How would you go about doing burgers in my situation, considering health and safety require that you use your ground meat only on the day you have bought it? Buy a grinder and grind yourself twice a day? Actually, I have a KitchenAid - has anyone tried the grinding attachment for it? It doesn't look very professional...

Cheers,

Recky


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## foodpump (Oct 10, 2005)

Oh yeah, been using the K.A. attatchment for years, no problems there.  Can the local bakery do frozen par-baked buns or frozen pre-proofed buns?  That way you can take out a few, bake them off, and if you need more, it's only a few minutes to bake off a few more.


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## chefatrh (Feb 23, 2011)

Breakfast margins are great but you have to do volume.  Here dinner will double the gross of both breakfast and lunch combined.  Margins are mid 30% not including wine sales.  Some dishes (crab cakes) we don't make the margin on but Coq Au Vin/Lamb Shanks/Mussels and other high margin items compensate.   We are in a watermans town on eastern shore of MD so we need to have a great crab cake and are willing to eat the margin on that one. 

Recky, to funny.  Just finished making sausage with my KA grinder.  Got it for Xmas.  Did a charcuterie plate for New Years Eve.  Was such a hit am adding to menu permanently.  Another no cook/low plating effort dish to take pressure of cook top and I can change it up when I want to keep it fresh.  Plus I like saying Charcuterie  The KA grinder seems to be great.  Did a pork butt in less that 5 minutes, easy to clean, solid construction.  Have the stuffing attachment but need casing before I can play with it.

Do not do burgers.   Not in my skill set for some reason.  We do a tenderloin slider (using up tenderloin that is not big enough for steaks).  Use the small rolls from Sams Club.  Pain in the you know what to get but I have not liked anything I can get from venders as much.  We do use a par baked dinner roll and seems to be a great success.


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## recky (Oct 15, 2012)

ChefAtRH - may I ask what kind of charcuterie you make with your KA grinder? And what exactly do you serve on your charcuterie plate? I think the idea is excellent!


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## lesorcier (Jan 9, 2014)

Run, boy, RUN! No, I mean take up running. Are you overweight? Lose it. Join the Y. Your stress level will drop like a Minnesota thermometer in February. Mine sure did.

Your concept of fresh and local is great, but are you sure you need to go for cash and carry? How about an account with a local distributor to save you some travel time. I made the same mistake myself. When you really look at the cost of gas and time that could be spent getting prepped, you might see how you can come out ahead. 

A la minute? Mise en place, baby! Get your sauce bases done and in the reach in once a week. Ask yourself this question a thousand times a day: "What can I do ahead?"

Clean vegetables? Make stocks? Mince shallots? Make soups that are better the next day? 

I have a triumvirate test: Fast, Easy, Good. Depending on the type of cooking I'm doing, I seek out the dishes that fit that test as well as possible. 

If you try to grind a lot of meat with a Kitchenaid you'll kill it.


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## recky (Oct 15, 2012)

LeSorcier said:


> Run, boy, RUN! No, I mean take up running. Are you overweight? Lose it. Join the Y. Your stress level will drop like a Minnesota thermometer in February. Mine sure did.
> 
> Your concept of fresh and local is great, but are you sure you need to go for cash and carry? How about an account with a local distributor to save you some travel time. I made the same mistake myself. When you really look at the cost of gas and time that could be spent getting prepped, you might see how you can come out ahead.
> 
> ...


Incidentally, I have been looking into local distributors for some time, but most simply aren't interested in deliveries to a small restaurant outside urban areas. I may have found one, though, that doesn't carry _everything_ I need, but it might save me quite a few trips.

I'm painfully aware of the necessity of efficient mise en place, but there's an associated problem, i.e. lack of burners. If it takes two or three burners to finish off your components for a single dish, you run out of hob space before you've even tackled all of the orders for a four-top. And you start developing severe jealousy towards octopuses! So, apart from good mise en place practice you need components you can simply hold in a bain marie or set-and-forget in the oven. Therefore, dishes like lamb steak with sauteed potatoes and glazed baby carrots will quickly land you in the shit.


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## foodpump (Oct 10, 2005)

LeSorcier said:


> If you try to grind a lot of meat with a Kitchenaid you'll kill it.


Nope. If anything, you'll crack the meat grinder housing, because it's plastic and will eventually fatigue and crack the one time you leave it in the d/washer for longer than 10 minutes. I fixed mine with JB-weld 5 years ago and I still use it about 3 times a week. I don't grind much meat, but a lot of dried fruit, which is much tougher. My 5 qt Costco Special has been used and abused on a dialy basis for over 5 years now--breads, doughs, grinding, and even an un-orthodox attachment used to coat nuts with chocolate.

Recky, whatchyaneed is a "Herd Verlaengerung" (stove extension) Little electric hotplates can be great for items that need longer cooking times during prep time


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## lesorcier (Jan 9, 2014)

That's amazing. We clobbered our Kitchenaid with too much cookie dough. I use either my 80qt or 20qt Hobart for grinding.


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## recky (Oct 15, 2012)

Thanks, foodpump! With six strong gas burners I don't really run into real estate issues during prep time. It's during service where I quickly run out of space.

I've got this gas-fired flat-top griddle plate that I never use. Has anyone ever tried using something like this for holding stuff at serving temperature??? It would, of course, be perfect for burgers if I decide to go along that route...


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## foodpump (Oct 10, 2005)

Of course! I've worked in many places that had a some kind of a bain-marie rig on the flat top and still had "real estate" to cook burgers.  One place I worked at  had the pasta pot on the flat top to re-heat the pasta.  One caveat:  The water will boil and evaporate much faster, so you will have to replenish the water more often.  If the flat top is on a "low" setting you can hold items like sauced pasta, risotto, glazed vegetables, etc, in their pots and pans for 5 or so minutes .  If the flat top has two or more burners, you can have one on a higher setting for burgers, and the rest on low.


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## patrickgaliardi (Jan 9, 2014)

Hi recky
I would (if it were me) focus on freshness ie. fresh salads and fresh ingredients all cooked to order with a French country style flair. I believe fresh is the approach to go but with simplicity. Maybe change the menu weekly , have some fun in discovery, keep the menu small but simple with three ingredients at most. This approach has a lot of prep but can be executed rather quickly, use a buerre fondue for the veg on each dish and just plate the protein . Sous vide might be something to look into for you as well since your proteins can sit in the water bath for extended periods of time. Good luck


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## lesorcier (Jan 9, 2014)

I've used a deep hotel pan as a baine marie, even a braiser at one place. Like you, though, I don't like to hold much... fresh is always best. A few of my sauces held up in the heat, though.


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## chefatrh (Feb 23, 2011)

Recky,

The charcuterie plate is ever evolving, which is the joy of it.  First iteration was a fennel sausage 2 ways, pickled shitakes, pickled pearl onions, and a slice of seafood terrine.  Sausage was rolled into a bat, sous vided for 2 hours at 159 and cooled.  1st presentation was a 4 by 1 by 1/2 stick that I brushed with Dijon, breaded, and browned.  All done before hand and put in convection to warm/crisp at service.  Scattered some pickled mustard seeds on top for presentation.  2nd was just a small slice cold with a doctored Dijon (tabasco and mustard seeds).  Shitakes were technically not pickled, they were sautéed in butter and I added a tiny bit of the sweet Asian broth I make for my rockfish dish and chilled.  Onions are halved and placed around plate for presentation.  Terrine was shrimp puree with sautéed mushrooms and baby spinach.  I placed an Arctic Char fillet in the middle (since that was fish of the day ).  It is sliced and placed on plate.

Takes 2 minutes to put together. 

This week I have another kind of sausage in sous vide, so I will do 2 different sausages, in some presentation and maybe chicken liver pate (if I don't get to new terrine).  The chicken liver is great.  Did it last week as a standalone.  Throw some toast points on a plate and bam, instant gourmet food.

RH


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## foodpump (Oct 10, 2005)

Patrickgaliardi said:


> Hi recky
> I would (if it were me) focus on freshness ie. fresh salads and fresh ingredients all cooked to order with a French country style flair. I believe fresh is the approach to go but with simplicity. Maybe change the menu weekly , have some fun in discovery, keep the menu small but simple with three ingredients at most. This approach has a lot of prep but can be executed rather quickly, use a buerre fondue for the veg on each dish and just plate the protein . Sous vide might be something to look into for you as well since your proteins can sit in the water bath for extended periods of time. Good luck


 I dunno.... I have trouble with this post.

1) Recky, the O.P. is in Germany, a.k.a. Deutschland, why would he want to cook "with a French country style flair"?

2) "keep the menu small but simple with three ingredients at the most" Say what? Three ingredients per dish? Three ingredients for the whole menu? Even if you have a protein, a starch, and a veg for a dish, you'll need at least three ingredients _per component_ of that dish.

3) Sous vide... the guy hasn't got enough time as it is, which is why he's asking for advice on how to streamline. Now he's got to get a dedicated waterbath/circulator AND a vacuum packer and spend even more prep time getting stuff into those bags?.


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## kaiquekuisine (Apr 11, 2013)

IMO using 3 ingredients n some cases can be harder then using more... hell when i would make rice based dishes i would use at most 5. 

Im sure cooking things in sous vide wont help AT ALL, cooking meat, poultry etc... for 36 hours is not fast and something you can prep, nor can you keep it for days. 

I would probably attempt a few simpler things that can keep longer. 

Purees done a day before hand , ragu and sauces that you use often made in probably larger quantities since they can be frozen. 

Stocks also made in larger quantities to be frozen. Their wont be loss of quality and they can keep for a while. 

I would also do some pickling, because i find it interesting and enjoy it (dont know you opinion on this). They can keep for days, and depending on the ingredient and spices can accompany a dish nicely. 

I also agree with cheflaynes previous posts on making traditional dishes, as well the idea on stews since they can keep for a while. 

You could also interchange and have dishes that dont need to be 100% cooked. Using maybe thing like carpacios or including raw to cooked items. 

Im also a big fan of Tarts (salty or sweet) because once made and baked that can be stored in the fridge and just baked off (2 minutes top) and they are done. Same with frozen par baked bread. 

I think mostly everyone has given fair advice, and you should attempt some new things. Possibly change a few items on the menu as well as keeping things traditional and rustic. Im also in favor of getting one more set of hands in the kitchen be it a dish washer doing extra work or just a kitchen help doing basic prep, and less complicated components (of course this all depends on $$$ how much you are willing to spend and can you spend it...)


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## flipflopgirl (Jun 27, 2012)

LeSorcier said:


> That's amazing. We clobbered our Kitchenaid with too much cookie dough. I use either my 80qt or 20qt Hobart for grinding.


KA has a lifetime waranty.
I just called their customer service department and a few days later received a new machine with bowl, paddle and wisk.
Put your machine in the box and use the pre paid shipping label.
Have done this twice in five years.

mimi


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## lesorcier (Jan 9, 2014)

WHAT! We took it to a repair shop who, believe it or not, never said a thing about a lifetime warranty.


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## patrickgaliardi (Jan 9, 2014)

Yeah I didn't know he was in Germany but that shouldn't matter anyway, don't you have a Chinese restaurant in your town?

And I meant to say three items per dish, not for the whole menu (common sense man), obviously with the small menu he has presently it's still difficult to get completed, so yeah go smaller then.

And since he has to travel so far to the markets he really doesn't have time to waste braising/stewing. Yes, sous vide takes some prep but seriously, I'm not sure how long it takes you to prepare sous vide parcels but it takes me about about 30-60 minutes. And actually you get get ahead pretty quickly.

Look he has no time on either front; getting his kitchen stocked AND executing service by himself, this type of cooking is effortless if you know what your doing. And every kitchen isn't producing plates every minute open so it would be easy to keep up with small prep in the beginning of service and at the end. And by the way I work 12--14 hours a day at work (might not be by myself) and in a 12 hour day it's about management of you time. It can be done, you'll just have to TiVo


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## recky (Oct 15, 2012)

Thanks a lot for all your input! Strangely, I didn't get any notifications for a couple of days, so I've only just seen everybody's contributions.

I've read everything with great interest, and a lot of knowledgeable things have been said. Perhaps I should provide more information about my place. My philosophy, for want of a better word, has been borrowed from the French bistro or bouchon, where traditionally fairly simple, rustic, yet tasty, dishes are produced from cheap ingredients, i.e. ox tail rather than beef tenderloin, lamb stew rather than a herb-crusted rack, coq au vin rather than chicken breast olives with a smoked salmon farce. Making great dishes from cheaper ingredients is actually a passion of mine and the customers seem to love it, because it's the kind of stuff people no longer cook at home.

I have access to top-notch local meat and trout while most of my veg comes from farms in the lowlands, some 20 miles from here. And so it goes without saying that my food is all about freshness and seasonality. Invariably, I look at traditional regional recipes (we're located in a kind of triangle of western Germany, Belgium and nort-eastern France) and attempt to produce authentic dishes with minor twists or modern-day updates. Occasionally, Italian-style cooking sneaks into it, for example the use of herbs.

In many ways, this restaurant is a dream come true, as I can try my hands at almost anything that tickles my fancy as long as it meets a certain price point and sticks to the rustic theme, as my customers are clearly not into fusion or nouvelle cuisine.

I really like KaiqueKuisine's suggestions of pickles and tarts; the former take no time to plate as a component and the latter would be a great addition to my menu.

As far as sous vide is concerned, I really don't know the first thing about it. I'm pretty old-school and don't even own a convection oven. Just a plain old gas-fired oven underneath the hob... ;-)


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## patrickgaliardi (Jan 9, 2014)

Recky said:


> Thanks a lot for all your input! Strangely, I didn't get any notifications for a couple of days, so I've only just seen everybody's contributions.
> 
> I've read everything with great interest, and a lot of knowledgeable things have been said. Perhaps I should provide more information about my place. My philosophy, for want of a better word, has been borrowed from the French bistro or bouchon, where traditionally fairly simple, rustic, yet tasty, dishes are produced from cheap ingredients, i.e. ox tail rather than beef tenderloin, lamb stew rather than a herb-crusted rack, coq au vin rather than chicken breast olives with a smoked salmon farce. Making great dishes from cheaper ingredients is actually a passion of mine and the customers seem to love it, because it's the kind of stuff people no longer cook at home.
> I have access to top-notch local meat and trout while most of my veg comes from farms in the lowlands, some 20 miles from here. And so it goes without saying that my food is all about freshness and seasonality. Invariably, I look at traditional regional recipes (we're located in a kind of triangle of western Germany, Belgium and nort-eastern France) and attempt to produce authentic dishes with minor twists or modern-day updates. Occasionally, Italian-style cooking sneaks into it, for example the use of herbs.
> ...


Sous Vide is a circulatory water bath with a tempeture control device ensuring the desired tempeture is maintained at all cost for as long as you need. When I suggested the sous vide method for you I wasn't trying to push michelin level food but you would also be able to do dishes like was suggested like shanks or stews and such. I worked at a place that did Osso buco , it helps with shelf life and makes any dish very tender. Also the product is individually vacuumed sealed and can sit in the bath for 12+ hours without ANY deterioration or loss of quality. Once a order comes in just pull out and serve, unless it's something you need color on then sear it quickly and slice. No loss of vital juices or flavor, everything (if you choose) can go in the desired dishes bag. It might be worth looking into, good luck brother.


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## chef torrie (Mar 1, 2011)

Rocky, how big is the flat top? I've for sur used then to hold food in the past. find yourself a steam table pan, fill it with water just like a steam table, and throw in the 1/3 or 1/6 pans of whatever you need to hold . Keep an eye on the temp of course.


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