Culinary excellence is a lonely road that can only be improved with sound strategies. A great chef knows this and finds clever ways to influence those around them. That chef frequently preaches to department heads about the importance of culinary perfection for the member or guest and is willing to go to great lengths to improve the offering.
In 1999, I arrived in Naples, Fla. to serve as the Executive Chef of the Ritz Carlton. I was the third chef to assume the role in the property’s fifteen-year history. The hotel was a luxury property with five restaurants, a spa, and multiple catering venues inside and outside the walls. It was a daunting job placing my mark on such a high-profile organization’s Eastern flagship property. Yet, here I was ready to begin.
We started a quality assessment for potential revenue growth. The budget had already been approved, so any change would be slow and methodical. The property was not broken. Things were well run, which made us question whether or not it was wise to make a change and, if we did, how would we influence others to believe our ideas would produce additional revenues or benefits?
After working with human resources to improve staffing, I focused on the Director of Finance. This role is most often called a controller. At the Ritz, my Director of Finance was named Jim. Jim needed to see and taste the ideas I had, otherwise, the purchase orders would simply be viewed by him as another list of costs.
Jim was from Saint Louis so I knew I might be able to get what I wanted by focusing on something he knows a lot about. I started with BBQ.
Our aluminum pots had been in the hotel since opening. After I spent nearly an entire day looking for a flat pot, I decided it was time to replace these all-important culinary tools. But Jim would have to sign the order. So, the saucier and I produced two BBQ sauces. One was made in an old aluminum pot and one was made in a new stainless steel-lined pot. We hoped the sauce acidity would react with the materials, which they did, with perfection. We took these two sauces down the stairs and right into Jim’s office.
The entire finance department did a taste test and determined that only one sauce was edible, the one made in the new pot. Jim signed a forty-thousand-dollar order for pots with a smile and with confidence knowing how these new tools would enhance the operation’s culinary product and lead to better sales.
When we wanted a new smoker, we chose to prove our need with ribs. We juxtaposed ribs made with a stovetop smoke beside ribs made in a home-based smoker borrowed from a cook. As was the case in the pot example, the taste test proved how purchasing a smoker would be in the best interest of the property. We explained how we could use it to smoke salmon and other proteins, which reaffirmed the fact that an industrial smoker would pay for itself in under a year, especially since Naples isn’t the BBQ capital of the world.
Smoking was something Jim knew and understood. We got our smoker.
Our strategy evolved to focus on culinary products such as dried aged beef, Valrhona chocolate, quality cured meats, and even mayonnaise. We had to show that a simple sandwich buffet—which we sold daily—could be better with proper ingredients. The new products were pricer, but positive compliments from the guests meant we had opportunities to increase pricing. We did a tasting of chocolate mousse and house-made sandwiches for the accounting department and, without pause, more purchase orders were signed.
Even chocolate chips and butter in our ten-ounce cookies, which we sold for thirty-six dollars a dozen, improved. Meeting planners didn’t blink when jumbo decadent cookies hit the afternoon meeting breaks.
Ultimately, we raised the food cost by three basis points until we could get the menu pricing to reach the cost of the new goods. The theory was simple: We would run a higher food cost until the catering revenue caught up. Many of the contracts were over a year old, we couldn’t re-negotiate as quickly as the quality changes, but that wasn’t enough of a reason to wait.
Next, we decided to focus on our employee canteen, after all, great armies march on their bellies. If you want your staff to believe in culinary, give them real-life experience with quality staff meals. Within a year, we successfully improved the quality of employee meals and morale lifted. The cost of the canteen went up by twenty-five cents each day per employee, but our employees made fewer customer mistakes and supported better overall profits for the hotel.
We achieved growth simply by caring for our most important asset, our employees.
The Purchasing Department also played a major role in the yield of quality ingredients. If you don’t get the right ripeness or size, your yield is off. Each morning, a Sous Chef would check in the produce with someone from Purchasing. They would behave as the quality inspector while Purchasing checked the price and yield count. The Chef would slice the melons, cut the vegetables, and taste the berries. What wasn’t correct went back on the afternoon truck. This process got the attention of the owner of the produce company, and shortly after our product was first class and ripe. But even with the owner’s blessing, each Sous Chef still took a week on the docks in rotation.
These initiatives were critical in achieving culinary excellence. Nothing was off the table. Roomservice pushed dessert buffets quarterly down to engineering just to say, “Thanks for the repairs.” Birthday cakes were supplied to human resources. And those product tastings in the finance offices? Of course, they continued.
Culinary excellence doesn’t just stand on the chef’s shoulder. But they do shoulder sleepless nights searching for solutions and strategies like these that will improve the culinary experience.