Aesthetics and Plating
Mind of a Chef Part IV
Good Day Frens, 🏝
First, thank you all for your kind wishes, thoughts and prayers as my father had an unexpected cardiac medical intervention. Was not expecting the amount of kind comments, DM’s etc and that truly means the world to me as it speaks to the kind of community that we are a part of and building.
We have 24 hours remaining to join as a Founding Member and receive the Octopod “Few” Knife. One time run only… last chance! *note: the response on this has also been amazing and very exciting for the future. Thanks to those who ordered a while ago and are patiently awaiting the supply chain issues. 🙏
This will probably be the last Mind of a Chef post for a while. Have a ton of other ideas for the upcoming Fall/Winter seasons, as well as holidays. I have been asked a lot about aesthetics, plating etc so hopefully this will provoke some fun and creative presentations to inspire you!
AESTHETICS:
Probably the most forgotten about aspect of cooking and eating is: We eat with our eyes first.
This is an incontrovertible truth. We have a natural affinity to beautiful objects, art, people… and yes, even food.
“Human neuroimaging studies have convincingly shown that the brain areas involved in aesthetic responses to artworks overlap with those that mediate the appraisal of objects of evolutionary importance, such as the desirability of foods or the attractiveness of potential mates. Hence, it is unlikely that there are brain systems specific to the appreciation of artworks; instead there are general aesthetic systems that determine how appealing an object is, be that a piece of cake or a piece of music.” (From “The Neuroscience of Beauty”)
So where does this lead us?
If there is a correlation between aesthetic food, and heightened enjoyment… why not take a few minutes to discuss some different styles of food plating and hopefully you can take a few nuggets to improvise with your own cooking and enhance your meal enjoyment, whether you are alone or with others.
*note: even when cooking for myself, I take a few seconds/minutes to plate my food thoughtfully. After all, surely the cook deserves that much respect 😉
PLATING STYLE:
There are potentially endless fads, and trends that could be dissected in food plating… we are going to stick with the most recent and/or relevant styles for sake of brevity.
One thing to be considered, especially for a tasting or omakase experience is the size of the plat compared the course being served. There are endless jokes about huge plates with tiny portions, and many of these generalizations are well deserved, but when done thoughtfully, the canvas (plate, bowl, platter, etc) should always be considered before plating.
Banquet-Style:
The most well-known and popular plating style. I call this “Banquet Style” because it has the creativity and aesthetics of an industrial assembly line. In fact, when I first started cooking commercially, I got thrown into banquets (which I quickly learned was not my jam) and when you are plating for 200-500 people at a time it takes a monotonous efficiency to ensue consistency.
The Formula?
Starch… Protein… Vegetable…. Sauce….
Rinse and repeat. Over and Over.
The starch is placed just off center… the protein then leans just against the starch, flanked by vegetable(s), then protein is doused in sauce.
Efficient.
Most home cooks I see don’t even take this approach. If that’s you, just start here and you’ll start to get a feel for spatial arrangements and aesthetics.
Nouvelle:
With an origin in the 1960’s, this is the term used for the transition of the French style of preparations canonized by Escoffier, were greatly simplified, reduced, and more emphasis was placed on fresh flavors, vs heavy and lush ingredients/sauces. The plating also skewed to more strategic plating with artful flair for visual impact.
As you can see, this picture screams the era of French Haute cuisine. Paul Bocuse, Pierre Troisgros and Roger Verge are 3 notable chefs who have had a big culinary impact, on myself included. Interesting to note that a lot of Japanese influence was key here, in regards to garnishes, precise techniques and more simplicity.
This is also where in the infamous “plate dot saucing” came into play and was abused across the globe. 😆
Nouvelle cuisine was declared officially “over” in 2006. A lot of the techniques and approaches were more mainstream integrated, and more interest in older cooking techniques were becoming fashionable again.
Deconstructed:
If you were around when the cooking of Ferran and Albert Adria took the culinary world by storm at their restaurant El Bulli, then you’ll remember the resulting obsession with Sous Vide, hydrocolloids, and chefs all over the world “deconstructing” dishes to absurd and cringe worthy levels 😂.
It’s funny for me to look back on, because this had an influence on my cooking as well. The idea of deconstruction is taking something familiar, and then breaking it down and making several sub-preparations that, when eaten together, evoke memories or similarities with the original.
The opportunity for error and misses is huge with this approach, which is why you got some laughably hilarious iterations. For example: “I’ve done a deconstructed meatloaf here… it’s a burger with a fried egg”. I’m not kidding. There were things like that going on.
There were some incredibly successful examples though, which led to new flavor combinations, a large focus on manipulating textures and techniques which still have impact today. One of the most famous examples would be Ferran Adria’s ”caviar” technique. Using hydrocolloids turning fruit juices into caviar-like orbs that burst (like caviar) when you press them to the roof of your mouth
Aside from the Adria brothers, Wylie Dufresne, Pierre Gagniere, Paul Liebrandt, and Grant Achatz all kind of fall into this category and had a huge impact on my palette, texture manipulation and flavor combinations.
The plating is characterized by a much more abstract approach. Empty spaces between ingredients, and even negative space at times to create visual impact.
Sauce-Throwing:
I’ll include a short section here. During the early 2010’s there was an explosion within a niche of fine dining chefs that wanted to take traditional presentations and throw it on it’s head. I call this the Jackson Pollack period because some guys were throwing and splatting sauces onto plates to create dramatic visual impact.
Its wasn’t uncommon to have 10 different spoons on the pass when I was plating at times, all for different sauces to get different effects based on spoon size, depth of the spoon, angle of the edge… it was almost like a little punk-rock rebellion of traditional plating that in some cases worked quite well.
As with most fads, within a couple of years every Tom-Dick-and-Harry were ripping this off to the point it became as mainstream as Applebee’s (in the fine dining world 😂). Still an important style to know about.
Natural Compositions:
There is also a style of plating (and cooking in general) that focuses on the ingredient with minimal manipulation, presented in a natural style. The father of this approach I would say is Michel Bras, who was one of the most underrated 3* Michelin chefs ever. He’s easier to find now, with Google etc… but BITD, you had to know and you drove out to the French countryside specifically to eat his food. His book Essential Cuisine made a huge impact on me.
Other important chefs with this approach would be Alain Passard (L’Arpege) and Rene Redzepi (Noma)
Minimalist:
Another plating expression and philosophy is one of minimalism. It’s the idea that why have 10 things on a plate, when you can have 3-4 and focus on those with precise flavors and techniques. It makes a powerful visual impact and also focuses flavors as they hit your palate which has a way of amplifying the result… a sort of alchemy. This approach was where I headed in the last few years of my cooking commercially and was a meaningful way of finding of my culinary voice. It’s interesting to note that many chefs who end up using this approach are very art-appreciative.
Obvious example here is Daniel Humm (Eleven Madison Park). While I don’t agree with his plant-based-only approach that he just inflicted on his diners, he’s an immense talent who is passionate about art. He’a Rothko fanatic and you can see his appreciation for monochromatic minimalism expressed in his plating and cooking.
And there you have it Fren… would be interesting to evaluate which presentations are visually impactful for you… what stimulates warmth and comfort, or even cold and harsh?
Let this be a start for you to to play with your food and how you present it.. and feeding your eyes first, before your stomach! 😉
Until Next Time Frens 🥂
Beautiful!