25.2022 Edition

Editor: Justin Khanna​

Hey Reader,

We had someone in the Repertoire Pro Community get a job offer at Saison this week 🥳 (2* Michelin in San Francisco) and I shared some insights with them that I wanted to also expand on here.

I made a quick Short on YouTube and also on TikTok to show a visual example of one tip, but here's the walkthrough:

For restaurants that don't have massive administrative resources (or just don't have the interest level) for sharing their menu(s) online, it can be difficult to plan for a stage.

When I used to stage, during my train ride to NYC (back in culinary school), I used to spend that 90 minute trip listening to Drake (to pump myself up) and going on the restaurant's website to get their most up-to-date menu. This helped me in two ways:

1. I could prepare myself to anticipate ingredients/preparations that I might be tasked with prepping. For me, this menu-browsing would often also include the Google searching of ingredients like salsify, nettles, sea buckthorn, or "Sauce Choron" that I hadn't quite been taught about yet in school. It was "micro" studying the menu, as well as "macro" studying of food in general.
2. During the stage, I could instantly stand out by asking better questions. When I was asked to go grab young coconuts from the walk-in, I'd say, "Are these the coconuts for the lobster dish?" and the person I was paired up with would say, "They are...how did you know that?"...😏

So those are the benefits, but I haven't shared the solution yet to our problem: how do we find the dishes if the menu isn't posted online and the restaurant isn't that active on social media?

Allow me to introduce: tagged photos on Instagram.

If the restaurant is reasonably popular (or marketed as an "experience"), guests are probably excited about eating there (or want to flex on the 'gram that they're enjoying the meal). When they get tagged on someone else's photo, you're able to see those pictures/videos in a separate feed (see photo below ⬇️)

I've found LOADS of value from doing research with this feed:

• Names of staff members (sous chefs, FOH, somms, porters)
• Ingredients being used
• Video tours of the kitchen
• Purveyors or names of farms
• Table-side presentations in-action

If you've ever gotten a short-and-direct email back confirming a stage that doesn't have a ton of supplemental info, for example:

"Arrive at 1pm. Wear black pants and black shoes. Bring chef knife, paring knife, peeler. Enter in the back alley on 4th St."

...this might be your way to do a bit of extra research to help make a great first impression...or even just decrease your anxiety heading into the experience!

If you do this for an upcoming stage and crush it, email me with the story, I'd love to share it in an upcoming newsletter 🙌

Would being able to ask questions like this be helpful? To get connected to a squad of other professionals, join the Repertoire Pro Community 👀

Top Highlights 💡

​How Barton G Spends $160K Developing Its Over-the-Top Menus​

​Barton G in Miami Beach spends close to $160,000 on menu development each year with an eye toward creating highly theatrical dishes. Think colorful chopped salads that arrive by wheelbarrow, Wagyu steak tartare served by a martian, and a four-foot-tall upside-down ice cream cone for dessert.

This is how they spend $160K on menu development:

Research & Design: $25,000 - certain dishes stay on the menu, but they do a big overhaul each year.

Tastings: $6,000-$10,000 - after having prototypes ready, Barton has to approve the dish before it goes on the menu.

Materials: $70,000 - it is difficult to find materials with the exact size, height, width, and weight

Labor: $30,000 - their team is small, so labor includes two artists and a carpenter

Transportation/Shipping: $25,000 - costs go into the packaging of the stuff to ship to L.A. since they build everything in Miami

Our Take: The biggest difference that I noticed when I went from restaurants to event production was the increases of budget, scope, and scale. When clients are often looking to "have you take care of it all", it can be immensely resource-intensive. However, that often comes with more financial capacity, and ultimately more profit. In other words: 10% profit on a $50,000 quarter and 10% profit on a $500,000 quarter...same margins, but more dollars, and more variables to manage.

​Why a Chicago Restaurant Is Taking Their Most Popular Dish Off the Menu​

Beverly Kim and Johnny Clark, the owners of Parachute decided to remove their most famous dish from the menu- the bacon-, potato-, and scallion-stuffed bing bread. They did it not because of the slim margin, but because they wanted to do right by their employees.

Kim and Clark increased house pay from $9/hour plus tips to $25/hour, which increased the restaurant’s labor costs by 29 percent. In order to make the dish less expensive to produce, they had to cut corners on the method or ingredients and Kim and Clark weren’t willing to do that. Raising prices also didn’t work for their concept, so the only option they had was to remove the bing bread altogether.

“We have to start somewhere to move toward a more equitable system — toward compensating everyone better,” says Kim. “If I have to make choices, like taking out the bing bread, in order to do this, then that’s what I have to do.”

Our Take: The funny part about seeing dishes leave menus is the increase in demand that usually follows. I find it hard to believe that they wouldn't be able to decrease the production (only ~40 orders available/day) and increase the price, and see it as a win-win all around. Simple supply & demand dynamics.

This isn't the only example of increasing labor costs across the industry right now, and there are few places for that to get funded aside from getting passed along to the customer.

I'm empathetic to both the business owner and the employee, which is why we're massively focused on resources for skill-development for the industry. Said differently: if staff is well-trained, skilled, and able to operate at a high level, there's no hesitation to pay more because the output tracks with the wages.

Quick Hits 💥

​This Restaurant Is Trash - “There’s a million reasons why it wouldn’t be possible for chefs [to use more food waste],” - says Chef David Murphy, owner of the Shuggie’s Trash Pie. Twice a week he and Kayla Abe go to the farmers market to pick up ingredients that are not commonly used in restaurants- entire cauliflower plants from stem to full leaves, wilted greens, ugly mushrooms, bruised fruit. Check out the full article to read more about this concept and the advantages or disadvantages it has.

​How I Celebrated My James Beard Award - This year Tammie Teclemariam won the James Beard Foundation Journalism Award in the Emerging Voice category 🥳

​Ninja CREAMi: Pacojet Killer? - Chris Young of ChefSteps and Modernist Cuisine fame does a fantastic comparison between 2 titans of frozen spinning. If you’re interested in following my 20% rule to see if this type of machine is right for your workflow or menus, definitely recommend the watch! Bonus points if you geek out about the inner workings of this type of equipment 🤓

ICYMI 🤳

​Christian Puglisi | Character, Courage, and Minimalism in Restaurants - Ep. 152​

My guest for this episode is Christian Puglisi, known for many incredible projects across his career, but you probably know him from Relæ in Copenhagen, as well as his fantastic published work, A Book of Ideas. I had the sincere pleasure of dining at Relae almost 7 years ago, and I saw Chef Christian post on Instagram that he’s heading into a new chapter of mentoring, investing and advising new projects, and I thought it was great timing to have him on the show. Watch the full episode here, or listen to the audio-only version.

To Peep 👀

​Magnus Nilsson in LA​

I'm heading to LA next month! I'll be attending this talk, featuring MAD's own Magnus Nilsson, and I'm excited to do some networking or even meet some of you folks. If you're in the area, it's completely free to attend.

Quote I'm Pondering 💭

Thanks for reading,

👊Justin​

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