10 Chef Blogs You Really Should be Reading (Slideshow)
To be a great chef, your mind needs to be slightly more attuned to the world around you than everyone else’s. For that reason, the skills that make someone a great chef – powers of observation, inquisitiveness, an eye for beauty – are also part of the skill set that can make someone a lively and engaging writer. You might be surprised by how many great chefs and food personalities have blogs that you should be reading.
10 Chef Blogs You Really Should be Reading (Slideshow)To be a great chef, your mind needs to be slightly more attuned to the world around you than everyone else’s. For that reason, the skills that make someone a great chef – powers of observation, inquisitiveness, an eye for beauty – are also part of the skill set that can make someone a lively and engaging writer. You might be surprised by how many great chefs and food personalities have blogs that you should be reading.
A layout with more white space or open space creates a better visual presentation for guests, naturally drawing their eyes to the food descriptions and design.
Photos can upsell an item up to three times as much as not-pictured items, but is most effective if used sparingly. Images can be limited to high-margin items or guest favorites.
Guests’ eyes tend to stray to the upper right corner when they first look at a menu, making this a good spot to place specials, high-margin items, or signatubkre dishes.
The most common flaws in menu design are a lack of contrast between the background color and typography, and beat-up menus that obviously need to be retired.
When arranging items under a particular section, the first and last items are typically the most important.
Unlocking the Power of Restaurant Customer Segmentation
Consumer spending is 46% higher with companies that offer loyalty programs. Many restaurants have never thought in terms of “lifetime value” of their customers.
Taking a proactive, strategic approach to customers allows you to target service and offerings to specific guests, but beyond this, restaurants are starting to get sophisticated with personalized promotions to drive the diner’s experience and enhance their overall operations.
What will the restaurant of the future look like?
‘Neurogastronomy’ – how the brain creates flavour and triggers our perception of it – is another key buzzword in future restaurant design, with high-tech settings able to dramatically enhance mood and flavour. There a lots of cutting-edge research happening in this field. A 2014 study by drinks company Diageo, for instance, found that curved furnishings and red lighting makes single malts taste sweeter.
As concerns around food safety, sustainability and provenance heightens, consumers will appreciate greater levels of transparency when it comes to ingredients,” Saven predicts. For a taste of things to come look to Harney Sushi in California where QR codes are printed on rice paper using edible water-based ink. When scanned, these reveal where the fish was caught, current ocean stocks, and videos of the fishermen.
6 must-do strategies attracting millennial diners
Knowing that millennials yield $1.7 trillion in direct spending power is too much for restaurants to ignore, which is why many of them have changed everything from their menu items to service models in an effort to indulge the 80 million millennial consumers.
The research firm, Technomic, predicts that the restaurant sector will see a 3 percent growth next year. The brands that adhere to the six following trends, however, will see the highest uptick in sales.
Unique flavors
Millennials crave adventure in all their experiences – including where and what they eat. Restaurants hoping to gain millennial attention will embrace their “restless palate syndrome,” by offering not only new dishes, but also twists on traditional culinary classics. Wingstop, for example, has seen great success with both its mango habanero and chili-lime flavored chicken wings, and Pizza Hut recently launched several new re-imagined pizza flavors, including its Cock-a-Doodle Bacon pizza, featuring a new garlic Parmesan sauce.
Look for even more flavor innovations over the next year, especially when it comes to Asian flavors. Technomic expects the breakout of Korean flavors, the mainstreaming of Vietnamese cuisines and the up-scaling of spicy ramen noodles.
Restaurants will also test new menu items this year, including celery roots, parsnips and kohlrabi, according to Baum+Whiteman. The food consultants also predict that restaurants will replace the standard potato side (think mashed potatoes, French fries, potato salad etc.) with more unique and adventures options like pureed root vegetables with smoked honey and cured pork.
There will also be an emergence of new protein. Turkey, for example, which is typically associated with lunchtime sandwiches and Thanksgiving dinner, will find its way onto more dinner menus replacing other staple proteins.
- Unique flavors
- Imitating fast casual
- Customization
- Still going mobile
- Sustainability Story
- Drinking up