In this short article I would like to share with some of you young chefs (either in experience, age or soul) an example of a situation we – the professional chef, deal with often in our daily routine. A situation in which we – the chefs, believe in serving a specific dish and the customer does not respond to it as we expected them to.

One thing that always surprises me is how customers react to the dishes that we create  – sometimes my expectation does not always match that of the customer or suit their liking.

In Figure 1 you can see how I served a cheesecake, the creation of my Pastry Chef Sherry Tziboth, which in my opinion was a method of serving whose purpose was to provide the customer with a satisfactory eating experience (in terms of flavors and textures), – the idea behind the dish was that the client will easily mix the cake and sherbet in the serving plate creating a mix of different flavors and textures – the customer however, did not react enthusiastically to this approach.

How did we deal with this? We rearranged the plating. Sherry, the pastry chef, took charge without my intervention – the results of which you can find in Figures 2 and 3, with 3 being our choice of serving since then on a regular basis, which has resulted in greater customer satisfaction.

Note that the changes are minor and do not always have a logical explanation.

The lesson that I want to impart is that sometimes what seems like a good dish to us will not be seen the same by a customer but even the smallest changes can make an unsuccessful dish (in terms of sales) satisfactory.

With my experience over the years I have learned to listen to the customers who choose to eat where I serve, the chefs on my team, and the waiting staff who see things from the customer’s point of view and are able to pass on their reaction to us in the kitchen on the serving floor.

Thanks for reading,

Michael