Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Taste is more important than presentation Ep. 2

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Taste is more important than presentation Ep. 2 · Chef's PSA Podcast

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  Hello chefs. You're listening to chefs.
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  PS a podcast. I'm your host Andrew natera.
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  Today, we're going to get into a controversial PSA that I posted
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  the other day and that is that taste is greater and more
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  important than presentation. And I know I'm going to catch
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  some heat for this when I posted the PSA, everyone's in my DM say
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  no I'm wrong. Presentation is equally as
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  important blah blah, blah blah blah.
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  Wrong taste is superior and I want to talk about why and I
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  know it's a controversial subject.
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  I know there's like a lot of a lot of chefs are like, no, no.
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  But you eat with your eyes first chef?
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  Yeah, that's that's dumb. And I'm not saying that
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  presentation isn't important. Because it is, and if you work
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  in a high-end restaurant, plating skills are critical, you
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  need to know how to use your offset spatula.
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  You need to use your tweezers. You need to know how to make
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  canals with spoons. You need to know how to properly
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  dab your meat and so on and so forth.
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  You need to have your random placement of flowers and herbs
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  and microgreens and garnishes presentation is important.
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  And I don't want to discredit that, but in the hierarchy of
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  importance, Presentation is not greater than taste.
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  So I want to share a story with everyone when I was a very young
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  cook. You know.
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  I don't know about 22 years old, I was really excited to go to a
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  seminar with a certified Master Chef and you know for people
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  that are not from my era a certified Master Chef was a huge
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  deal, it still is a huge deal. I don't know if it has the same
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  popularity as it did when I was coming up, but it's still a huge
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  deal. It's very it's a very difficult
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  exam to become a certified Master Chef through the American
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  culinary Federation. Duration, you know, there's a
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  cooking practical, there was a some tests that you had to take.
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  You have to be a certified executive, chef blah, blah, blah
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  point, being that. It's a big deal.
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  If you're a certified Master Chef.
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  So when I was a young cook, I went to a seminar with a
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  certified Master Chef and he said something that stayed with
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  me pretty much for the rest of my career and really changed my
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  mind. Because, you know, master chefs
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  at that point in time, really worthy Authority, when it came
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  to cooking and what the Master Chef said.
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  To me, because I was a young cook.
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  I cared about plating I wanted. You know, I wanted my food to
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  look cool. I wanted it to have all the, all
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  the, you know, soigne garnish. And all the things that impress
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  people, when they look at food, I was really into plate.
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  And I would practice plating more, that I'd practice cooking
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  and the Master Chef said, when you get a beautiful dish, And
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  you're blind. Does it matter?
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  Do you care that? It's beautiful.
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  If you cannot see and he had a great point and someone argued.
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  Well, you eat with your eyes. First you know, presentation is
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  everything he said, okay great. But how long does presentation
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  matter? It usually only matters for a
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  few seconds before you start eating it which I thought was a
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  very bad, a valid point and it really changed my thought
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  process into how I think about plating, how I think about food
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  because a lot of times we spend so much time Each time making
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  sure that the dish is beautiful. We live in the digital world.
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  Now everyone has Instagram, everyone's posting their art of
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  plating dishes, you know, tagging food stars, or whoever,
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  right? And people go out of their way
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  to get some clout on Instagram with beautiful plating.
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  And I'm not going to lie, some of the, some of the plates are
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  beautiful. And but I would say don't be
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  fooled. A lot of the food that you see
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  on Instagram for some of these, you know.
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  Plating websites or I'm sorry. Plating plating Pages, it's
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  ait's a, it's bullshit food. It's stuff that would never work
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  in a restaurant. It's stuff that is specifically
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  designed to be displayed on Instagram and the reason you
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  wouldn't serve it in a restaurant is because, you know,
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  you might have 20 30 touch points on it and you have three
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  Cooks. So it's not realistic food.
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  Now, I'm not talking about these world-class restaurants like,
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  you know, Nomar per se or something like that, you know,
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  when they're Posting food, that's really how you're going
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  to get it. And and those restaurants what
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  I'm talking about is like the guy that you've never heard of
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  that has 200,000 followers on Instagram and, you know, he's
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  got, you know, the the universal spiral of some sort of puree
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  with a whole bunch of flowers and you know, it looks really
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  pretty. I don't know if it tastes good.
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  That's that's kind of the point is we put so much focus on
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  plating because we're incentivised on social media to
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  be rewarded. With likes and comments and
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  shares because our food is pretty and played it nicely, but
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  if you're a chef or cook and I'm assuming you are because you're
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  listening to this the food that you serve on Instagram, does it
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  matter unless you could pull it off in your restaurant.
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  That's what's important and needs to be delicious in the
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  restaurant. So I would ask anyone to go
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  through this exercise that I like to use is think about the
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  Most beautiful dish you've ever been served or created, right?
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  So so think about that dish, what it looked like and and have
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  that in your mind. Now write that dish down or
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  remember it. And now think back to the best
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  dish or best meal you've ever had.
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  And then I would challenge you, are they the same is the most
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  beautiful dish that you've ever had.
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  Also the most delicious dish that you've ever had and the
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  chances are, they're not. And, and the fact of the matter
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  is, I know, they're not. And if you come to me and say,
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  no, they are there. Same dish and say, okay you're
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  full of shit, you just want to prove a point because I know
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  they're not some of the best meals that you've had some of
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  the most tasty are the, you know, it's the beautiful Taco
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  that you're getting from a from a, from a food truck or at
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  someone's home or a moment in time at a world-class
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  restaurant. These are the most delicious
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  things that you've had in sometimes the most delicious.
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  The most delicious things are plated.
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  You know, very humbly, very Simply.
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  And so it's important that we see the distinction between
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  plating and taste. Now, even though we went through
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  that exercise, there's still going to be people that say no
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  no no presentation is more important, okay?
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  And I still haven't convinced you.
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  So we're going to try one last time to convince you.
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  Why taste is superior to plating.
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  Let's say, you have to choose and there's two plates in front
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  of you. One of those plates is
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  absolutely beautiful. It has everything on it, it has
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  some stupid spiral of a puree. It has flowers.
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  It has shaved raw vegetables. It's plated in a amazing fashion
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  that you'd expect from someone that you've never heard of that
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  has 100,000 followers. It's just stunning.
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  But there's a catch, it's spoiled.
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  Now, there's another plate next to it and the other plate.
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  It served on a disposable plate and it's humbly presented, but
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  it is just super tasty cooked by one of the best chefs.
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  In the world. But it looks sloppy because it's
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  on a on a disposable plate. Which one do you want to eat?
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  Do you want to eat the delicious dish that looks?
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  Okay. Or do you want to eat the
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  spoiled food? That looks beautiful?
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  I mean, it's a rhetorical question because if you have,
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  you know, any doubt that you would eat the delicious food
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  over the spoiled food? Well, then I think we could, we
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  could kind of rest the case a little bit that taste is the
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  most important thing and then presentation would come second.
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  Now, I feel like I've been beating up presentation a little
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  bit, so I want to expand upon that presentation is important
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  and knowing how to plate is a skill and we touched on that
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  earlier. But here's here's another
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  thought exercise. If you could think of something
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  like the classic dishes, you know, a roasted chicken or a
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  prime rib or anything like that. These are dishes that would be
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  delicious. 50 years ago, they were delicious 20 years ago,
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  they're delicious today most likely they will be delicious 20
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  years from now 50 years from now, so on and so forth.
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  Because things that taste good are going to taste good
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  regardless of where you are in time, right?
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  But when it comes to plating and presentation, that is evolving
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  very quickly. You know, that's a, you know,
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  that's an art form. That's, that's, that's changing
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  with Trends and it's And it's very quick.
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  Now, right, you could go back. I would challenge most chefs to
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  do this. Go back and look at your plates
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  from a few years ago. And then look at your food now
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  and then say okay. Which one do you like better?
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  Most likely going to say, oh, okay.
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  I like my plating style now but a few years ago the way you were
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  plating. Like that was that was all the
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  rage food Trends and plating Trends evolved.
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  So quickly that your head is going to be spending trying to
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  keep up with what is the latest and greatest way to present
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  food. So, I would say fundamentally
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  make sure that your food is delicious first.
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  So this is what I do when I'm developing a dish.
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  I make sure it tastes good. I go through the iterative
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  process, we try it with different chefs when everyone's
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  satisfied that. Okay, it's delicious.
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  Then we work backwards on the plating, like, okay, now that it
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  tastes good. How do we make sure it looks
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  good. And sometimes, you know, I'm not
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  going to sit up here on my high horse and say that, I don't
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  sometimes make decisions based on presentation because I do,
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  but I've refined it along. The way like I don't make as
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  many stupid mistakes as I did early on, in my career when I
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  thought plating was more important.
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  So there's a lot of ways that you could enhance the
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  presentation and this is goes everything from, you know, if
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  you're working in that type of restaurant, maybe you pour the
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  sauce tableside, maybe you add another version of the same
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  vegetable. So maybe you have a puree of a
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  vegetable and then you also have a cooked version of the same
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  vegetable looking beautifully or, you know, you have herbs or
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  whatever is going to impact the color on there.
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  But the old saying is If you put something on the plate it should
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  have a purpose. And you know, they used to drill
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  that into our heads in culinary school like everything on the
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  plate. Needs to have a purpose and
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  you're like yeah, you got to have functional garnishes.
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  Yeah, yeah, I get it. It makes a lot more sense.
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  Now, that I'm designing dishes because I see so many dishes.
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  Now that have things on them, that really don't belong.
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  And you wonder, why is that on that dish?
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  It doesn't belong. And if the only reason it's on
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  the dishes because it makes it look better but it doesn't Make
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  it taste better and may you may need to remove it because it may
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  be detracting from the overall presentation.
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  So I think it's very important to work first with the dish and
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  then work on presentation s. So I want to make sure that
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  that's clear. I'm not I'm not one of these
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  people. That says oh yeah, taste matters
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  and presentation, that's not important.
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  Presentation is important but it's Step 2 in the process now,
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  people listening to this podcast may or may not know if you know
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  me personally and you're one of my friends, you know, obviously
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  that I was a chef for 20. Seven years and I've stepped
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  away from the kitchen. You I'd like to say, I'm
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  retired, but what I mean, is, I'm no longer running
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  professional kitchens day to day after so many years in there.
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  I thought it was time to step away and the reason I bring that
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  up is because if one day, I ever decide to go back into the
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  kitchen, people say, are you worried that time will pass you
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  by that? The food will evolve, and the
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  trends will evolve and you know, quite honestly.
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  No, I'm not too worried about it.
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  Obviously, I fully understand that if I were to take 10 years
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  off and we see how quickly food evolves within one year.
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  So, if you could extrapolate that to 10 years out, I think we
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  would see some massive changes in the way that we cook in the
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  ingredients that were using, and to what's trendy.
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  But I wouldn't really worry too much.
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  So, let's just use this as a thought experiment.
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  If you pulled me out of cooking for 10 years that you threw me
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  back in. And you said, we need you to
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  perform Format the top, I wouldn't worry because during my
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  time as a chef, I picked up invaluable skills.
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  Along the way. I know how to lead a kitchen.
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  I know how to manage a kitchen. I understand how to cook.
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  I know how to use a knife. I know how to use pots and pans.
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  I know how to work with different ingredients.
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  My fundamentals are strong. What I would do is I would say.
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  Okay, give me a few weeks. Let me research who the top
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  restaurants in the world are. Let me see what the plating.
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  Miles are, let me see what to the ingredients tiles are.
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  Let me see what's new that I'm unaware of.
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  Let me see what's no longer relevant and then let me take it
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  from there. I don't think it would be that
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  difficult because I already know how to cook.
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  The only thing I'd be updating is just, you know, the trend
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  changed, right? So that's new.
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  And the plating style changed, that's new.
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  But unless we're cooking with robots, everyone still is using
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  a knife. There's one still works on a
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  cutting board. One still working with pots and
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  pans. I don't think I'd be that big of
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  a fish out of water. And so, that's why I always tell
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  people, like, in the order of hierarchy, it's like know how to
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  cook, make sure it tastes good. Presentation comes third,
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  because presentation is the one that is going to change the
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  fastest and be least relevant over time.
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  And what you want to do as a chef is you want to build skills
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  that are Timeless. That this is this is going to
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  give your career longevity. So, you know, I know that's a
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  little bit of a rant one. Last point, I Make is a lot of
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  people say, well what happens to these chefs that don't evolve,
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  you know, why is it that they can't figure out the latest
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  plating Trend, or whatever it is?
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  That that has kind of at a certain point made them no
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  longer relevant in the dining scene.
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  And I could tell you because I this is something that I
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  struggled with my last couple of years.
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  In the kitchen is the plating seems less and less important
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  over time. And the food that's delicious to
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  you is universally delicious but people have seen it before and
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  so when people say like what do I crave?
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  I crave simple meals, you know, a good piece of fish, a grilled
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  steak roast a chicken, whatever the case may be, I don't
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  necessarily crave the most, beautiful trendy dish and I
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  think that's where a lot of chefs go wrong.
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  Is they still want to play at the top?
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  They still want to be an important Chef in their
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  Community, but they don't want to Evolve with the trends and,
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  and, and the plating cells. And I'll be honest with you.
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  This is this is where plating and Trends are important,
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  because if you don't want to play that game anymore, you run
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  the risk. And I'm not saying it's gonna
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  happen to everybody, but you do run the risk of no longer being
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  relevant at the top end of those competitive restaurants.
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  So something for chefs to keep in mind is that I felt like I
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  was pretty good as a chef, like a trek.
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  Cognizing the trends and understanding that we had to be
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  on them. But if I could be honest, that
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  food didn't excite me. I just knew that, like, okay, if
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  we're going to play at this level and we're going to play at
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  the top, this is the kind of food that we need to do these
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  the ingredients that we need to look at this is what we need to
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  Plate, like, but it didn't excite me.
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  I just knew I was playing the game at that point, because what
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  always excites me is just simple, technical, beautiful,
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  delicious food and that to me is more Timeless than You know, to
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  the thing that I keep harping on is, you know, the the, the silly
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  art of plating swirls with, you know, purple and orange and all
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  these incredible colors anyway, rant over.
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  I hope you all enjoyed today's rant, and hopefully, you took
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  something away from it. Learn something.
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  Maybe you agree with me. Maybe I changed your perspective
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  on this. Maybe you still think I'm full
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  of shit. Regardless, doesn't matter?
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  I want to make sure that you heard it.
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  I explain my case and hopefully you can use this in your own
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  thoughts and methodology when running your own kitchen.
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  So anyway, we'll see you on the next one.
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  Thank you all. you can use this in your own thoughts and
• 16:24
  methodology when running your own kitchen.
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  So anyway, we'll see you on the next one.
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  Thank you all.