I’m struggling. I know, this isn’t anything new. I seem to spend a lot of time struggling. This time I’m struggling with what I want to cook and what I think I should cook. More specifically, my struggle is with the a la carte menu; not only mine at the restaurant, but will all a la carte menus. I hate a la carte menus. They are so…boring, for lack of a better word. I would rather not have an a la carte menu. I would rather only do tasting menus. Menus where each course is designed as part of a larger menu. Where each course is reliant upon what came before and what comes after. A la carte menus are designed to appeal to the greatest number of people. They are designed to offer the greatest amount of variety with every dish being able to stand on it’s own; not one dish is reliant upon any other dish on the menu.
My biggest problem with the a la carte menu is it doesn’t allow for many dishes I would rather cook. You see, sometimes I would rather make a dish say of sauteed greens with a little fresh made cheese curd and a sauce of Cabernet Franc juice. I think this would be a wonderful dish, but my problem is, can I charge enough for this to make it worth while? There are realities I would rather ignore. Realities like paying bills, payroll, saving for raining days, etc., that make me have to charge a certain amount so I can meet my obligations. I have to charge at least $9 for any appetizer I put on the menu. My bills just don’t allow me to charge less. One of the questions I have to ask myself each time I put a new item on the a la carte menu is is there enough value in the dish to justify the price? So, with the dish I just mentioned I have to ask myself if people would order it and think they got their monies worth. I seem to on a “value” kick these past couple post, huh?
The problem I have in judging the value of a dish is I don’t spend much time on the other side of the table, and I’m not sure how non-chefs look at food. For me, when I eat a dish, whether mine or someone else’s, I am judging the dish on a number of things. I am looking for brightness, flavor, seasoning, how long it lingers, do I crave another bite, things like that. Price comes into play, sure, the more a dish costs the better it must be. If I am paying $5 for a complete meal I don’t expect much, but when the price begins to rise I start expecting more. While I feel comfortable making the value call when I am eating, I find it much more difficult to make that call for everybody else. As a professional chef one would think that call would be easy for me. I make a living cooking food I think others will like, so it stands to reason I must be able to tell if a dish has value. If you ever saw the movie, “Rain Man” with Dustin Hoffman, you will understand what I’m saying. In the movie, Dustin Hoffman’s character was asked how much a candy bar costs and he responded, “Hundred dollars…hundred dollars”. I am Rain Man in these instances. It is difficult for me to put a real value on my food. I usually just try to get my percentage of food cost out of it and call it good. I really don’t know when it is fine to charge more because the dish is just so damn good it justifies it. That’s what I like about tasting menus. I can put dishes in that might not cost much to make but are just damn good and because they are part of a larger menu I can justify their place in the menu; not so easy with a la carte menu.
So, I ask you, my readers: How do you decide you got your money’s worth? Please leave comments, I would really love to know