Menu makeover

Olive might have taken nearly a decade to change its menu entirely,but others are quick to cater to the city’s fickle taste buds. In the last month,Pali Village Cafe changed its menu to adapt to the season. JW Marriott’s restaurant,Spices,made additions to its menu to incorporate the contributions of their three new chefs from Hong Kong,China and Japan. KOH by Ian Kittichai — the InterContinental Marine Drive’s Thai restaurant — is also planning a massive makeover to celebrate its first anniversary.

However,the process of changing the menu can be taxing. After all,ditching the grilled basa for the roast lamb requires a certain amount of deliberation. “You can’t just change a menu overnight,” says Paul Kinny,executive chef of The InterContinental Marine Drive. “It’s a process that takes place through an organised system.”

The very first step of a menu makeover is to figure out what customers like. Most restaurants do that by looking at a computer programme that they use to manage all aspects of the kitchen,right from keeping an inventory to taking

customer orders. Once an order has been placed,it is fed into their database before being sent to the kitchen for preparation.

At the InterContinental,this software is called Micros. Pali Village Cafe uses a similar version called Dyne,whereas The Renaissance Hotel’s system is called the Menu Engineering Report. The function of all these programmes remains the same — minute analysis of food trends and favourites that would put market research firms to shame.

“It’s very technical but it also gives us a comparison for the price of food and inventory,” said Surjan Singh Jolly,executive chef,Renaissance Hotel,Mumbai. “This helps us a lot when it

comes to the final pricing of an item.”

Kinny likes the idea of controlling the kitchen through a computer. “Every aspect of our kitchen — the stock,inventory and recipes — is integrated with this system,” he says.

But this system,brilliant in carrying out the kitchen’s incoming and outgoing stocks with pricing margins,is limited only to figuring out the dishes that diners regularly order. That is

why chefs must look at other avenues to introduce new flavours while retaining signature dishes and favourites.

“We go by seasonal changes as well,” says Conrad D’souza,executive chef and management partner at Pali Village Cafe,Bandra,which modifies its menu in August and again in January. “In the monsoons,it’s good to limit the amount of seafood whereas in January,with summer coming up,we add lighter dishes to the menu,” he says.

Others like KOH by Ian Kittichai and Fratelli Fresh in The Renaissance hotel rely on their ‘What’s New at KOH’ and ‘Daily Specials’ board,respectively. “The specials board for any restaurant serves as a playground to experiment with dishes we would like to introduce to the menu,” says Jolly. “If they like these dishes we take them into

account during tastings.”

But Chandra,on the other hand,has used his personal experiences of managing three of Olive’s kitchens to introduce starkly different menus in each outlet. “The menu in Bandra is different from the one in Mahalaxmi and Bangalore because of the varying demographics in these areas,” he said. “Only 20 per cent of the dishes are standard across the menus.”

Once the changes have been finalised,the fun part of sampling the dishes begins. “We strike a balance with all these factors,guest feedback,local and international trends,my innovations,and shortlist about 50- 60 new items,” said Ian Kittichai. “Then these go through tastings at various levels before we finalise a menu,” he adds.

While most places sample their new dishes with the help of staff and informal freebies to guests,Pali Village Cafe invites their guests to a special sampling session. “We conduct a free tasting session for all our regulars,” said D’souza. “Based on their feedback,we decide which dishes to finally go with.”