Top Tips For Restaurateurs!

• There is a growing taste for simplicity.
• Be very suspicious of an overly long menu, there are very few kitchens that can really cook hundreds of dishes. They just don’t have the skills to do it, so if they’re telling you that they can do 30 starters and 30 mains either they’re embellishing the reality or they have bought in most of their food from a food service company.
• Overly long menus scream freezer, deep fat fryer and microwave.
• Blackboards that say ‘may contain nuts’ tell you that the restaurant doesn’t know whether the dish contains nuts or not because it was bought in from an external service provider.
• Blue Chipping is when you are over claiming for every ingredient – most glorious, brilliant ingredient that has ever been found… don’t do it!
• The menu should be written from the kitchen out and bring you a flavour of what is happening in the kitchen.
• Dirty Americana is emerging on the high street – quality hamburgers, American barbecue and ‘pimped up’ fried chicken… we may see more
• Don’t laminate your menus… just don’t!  They will look greasy and corporate.
• Never describe a dish as delicious, mouth watering or a treat for the taste buds. Let the diner decide.
• Make the dining experience personal. Give diners the impression that for the 2 hours they are sitting in your restaurant, that the rest of the world has gone away.
• Menu hot spots – placing a dish in a certain position on the menu may persuade your diners to order it.  But remember, diners aren’t naive!
• If you single out a particular dish as being freshly prepared, by definition you may be suggesting that other dishes aren’t.
• If you have a restaurant in your hotel de-brand it. Offer a separate entrance and lose all traces of the morning’s breakfast service.
• Menus need to change from time to time not only for diners but also to keep things fresh and interesting in the kitchen.
• Don’t give diners iPad menus. It will make them feel they are still at work.
• If you have an overly long unwieldy wine list it may be helpful to suggest a few ‘gems’ especially those available by the glass.

Includes extracts from LAW Creative goes ‘Head to Head’ with Jay Rayner.

LAW Creative is a specialist hotel and leisure marketing integrated agency.  Contact brett.sammels@lawcreative.co.uk