Jenny Dorsey, a culinary consultant based in New York and Los Angeles, says operators can begin the menu optimization process by looking at every raw ingredient brought into the kitchen, and taking note of every dish in which it is used. Ingredients that are seldom used can be considered for elimination.
“If you have a beef tartare, can you make it without the quail egg? That should be part of the conversation,” she says.
If there’s not a suitable substitute for a seldom-used ingredient, operators may consider removing the dish temporarily and potentially bringing it back in the future, Dorsey says.
It is also important for operators to regularly analyze the actual costs of all the inputs required for each dish. “You need to have a system in place for doing actual food-margin checks,” says Dorsey.
“You need to make sure that a plate that is supposed to have a 23 percent food cost has not inched up to 27 percent because someone is putting an extra peach on it, or because the price of an ingredient has gone up.”