TJ Garrish, Executive Chef of L’Hirondelle Club of Ruxton, is embracing the opportunities caused by COVID-19 to create safe, new and exciting dishes for members.
Over the last couple months, L’hirondelle Club of Ruxton (Towson, Md.)—along with every other club in the nation—has faced trying times. Every week, we have had to pivot at the drop of a dime to provide value, stability, and creative ways to serve our membership.
As we fast approach reopening of our a la carte dinning options, along with our pool and snack bar, we have once again have had to get creative, approaching our operation and menus with a different mentality.
As we build a new menu, we must ask ourselves a few questions:
- What do our members expect as we reopen?
- How can we exceed those expectations?
- What will service look like moving forward?
- How can we execute a creative menu in a timely manner?
The next element we must consider is whether or not we will be able to consistently get the products we would like to use to consistently offer these dishes to our members at the level of quality they are used to getting from us. We must also consider what the prices of proteins will look like in future weeks.
I recently reached out to purveyors to ask these questions. I was reassured that there may be a slight price increase for certain items, but they were very confident we would not see a disruption in service or a dip in quality. When I hear news like this, I wonder how much of their statement is actually true? Then I consider how much I’m willing to gamble.
Erring on the side of caution for our reopening menu, I chose items I felt will not be in high demand, like pork osso bucco and skirt steak. When Wendy’s removed their burgers from the menu, I purchase extra meat products so we have a good supply on hand. This is something, under normal times, I would never do, but under these circumstances I can’t be sure about items that are staples within the industry. So planning ahead and being prepared will be key to our reopening menu’s success.
Moving on to produce I felt very confident we would be able to source fresh seasonal produce from our purveyor and from local farms. As for seafood, I was assured would have no disruption and that prices will remain stable overall on most products. We’ll see.
Once I nailed down the ingredients, I began to build my menu. Summer is my favorite season for food. It’s a time when I can get creative and take a healthy, flavorful approach to cooking without heavy sauces. I can use flavorful fruits and vibrant vegetables. I can mix different cultures throughout my menu to entice the members.
As a club, we must be careful not to alienate our membership with our menus, especially now. We must keep the menu balanced with classic entrees and casual dishes while also trying to put a playful spin on our food. During these times I think its more important than ever for our food to stand out.
When we build a menu, we consider many different elements. It all begins with flavor and using quality ingredients that stand on their own. We try to showcase ingredients members may have never tried to capture their attention. We reimagine ingredients they have had, but deliver them in a different way.
One example is our Tuna and Watermelon. Everyone has had watermelon so they understand what it should taste like. But in this dish we compress the watermelon to give it more sweetness and make it blends well with tuna. We then create a watermelon dashi to provide acid as well as umami. We add jalapeños for spice and avocado for hardiness. The final plate is approachable, yet creative. When members bite into it they smile and tell us it reminds them of summer.
I am also huge on a taking playful approach to things like carnival food. I can remember as a kid playing baseball and always wanting a corndog to snack on. So we created a lobster corn dog that offers slightly childish yet grown up approach to the corndog. We serving it with a corn salsa and red pepper coulis to make it even more summery.
Once we nail down the recipe, we look at the plateup. How can we present each element in its best form? What plate should we use? How will the member receive it? Can we make it interactive, especially now? All these questions must be answered well before a menu is finalized.
Some items lend themselves to a more simplistic approach due to the vibrant colors of the fruit or vegetables. Going back to the tuna dish, you see vibrant reds and greens so we don’t need to mess with it in order for it to pop on a clean white bowl and provide tons visual appeal.
During the process, each dish is plated then taken deconstructed, then replated until we are satisfied with even aspect of the dish. We try to integrate art concepts as we plate up, too. Simple things that will add contrast, using white space and the rule of odds are important as we create new dishes—especially since we’ve been “plating” in to-go containers for the past few weeks. (See The Power of Plating.)
Good flavor, making sure a dish is visually appealing and consistently executed add up to a trifecta for member value and satisfaction. Streamlining our process also helps to sets us apart. Summer is easily streamlined because we can rely on techniques that don’t require cooking, like a cold dashi, coulis, or crema. Aioli is especially great for summer plates and can be kept in squeeze bottles to reduce plating times. Mise en place is really the key to create visually appealing items in a timely manner. When everything is thought out, we can create a dish that speaks for itself.
As we’ve developed our reopening menu—check it out here—it has been especially rewarding to see the drive and dedication provided by the kitchen staff here at the club to continually to provide memorable experiences and delicious safe food for our members.
COVID-19 has put us all in positions to reevaluate how we do business. We are streamlining our systems to reduce payroll and increasing a la carte revenue due to losses in banquet business. It’s a struggle, but if we think outside the box and restructure our models to create a better way of doing business, we will succeed. This crisis has allowed us to retool our old standards and create new methods, researching, and evaluating new ideas to see if other models can work in the club world. The future is bright—if you choose to see it that way.