Catering to Dietary Preferences
Diners are more discerning than ever. They look for quality, traceability, and whether particular foods fit their life choices. One’s eating lifestyle is built around a belief system that will determine what he or she deems to be “healthy”. The media provides us with so much information (sometimes conflicting) that can sometimes be confusing. Restaurant professionals are challenged to cater to people’s response to this information which results in various dietary preferences. This is an important paradigm shift in consumer behavior that needs to be considered by food professionals in order to stay competitive. While mass food producers have used eating preferences as an opportunity to market new products and are often ahead of setting the trend, restaurants are slower to embrace the concept.
Why is “healthy” in quotation marks? Quotation marks are used because the word “healthy” is highly subjective. What is healthy for one is not healthy for all. For many years it has been common knowledge that a diet heavy in fried food and sugar will result in unhealthy consequences. However, because of advanced public awareness, today’s dietary preferences come in many different shades: Vegan, Vegetarian, Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Paleo, Low Carb, Ketogenic, Organic, Non GMO and more…
While we may not be able to accommodate everyone, there are a few steps that will make your establishment’s dietary preference friendly. Vegan (VG), Vegetarian (V), Gluten free (GF), and Dairy free (DF) are the most requested preferences. One of the steps in delivering hospitality is anticipating guests’ needs. Making dietary preferences a priority will gain guests’ confidence and increase their visit frequency.
INGREDIENTS
As a general rule, we avoid the use of prepared and processed foods. This avoidance includes, but is not limited to, pre-made dressings, condiments, and lunchmeat. We source organic and GMO-free ingredients whenever possible. In addition, we enhance our pantry by sourcing the following ingredients to accommodate requests and or elevate our food preparation:
- gluten-free soy sauce
- high quality vegan and gluten-free pasta
- gluten-free all-purpose flour
- non-dairy milk and creamer alternatives: almond; cashew; soy; oat
- high temperature cooking oils, such as coconut and avocado
- high quality finishing oils: extra virgin olive; sesame; walnut; grape seed
- expanded spice selection
We organize our ingredient list in a way that will help sort out dietary preferences in order to build and adjust recipes. This practice will also assist us when training our team. We mark items that contain gluten, animal product, dairy, and others.
We conceptualize bolder food, meaning more flavorful, fresher, and ultimately more pleasing food. We expand our spice selection to include citruses, herbs, and finishing oils that (work together, mingle together, combine) to excite the taste buds. It is easy to fall into the bland zone when preparing vegan food or “health food”. We are curious and experiment with flavor associations. Serving a bland plate of steamed vegetables to a vegan guest is not going to bring him or her back. A few well-selected spices, some chopped herbs, and a squeeze of lemon will bring simply prepared vegetables to new heights.
2. COOKING
Stay true to who you are as a concept. Our goal is to accommodate more dietary preferences. If your restaurant’s best-selling dish has contained gluten for 20 years, we would not suggest changing it. Some items should stay exactly as they are. If you have enough gluten free options on the menu, we protect the integrity of the dishes that use gluten.
As we focus upon preparing lighter food, we consider cooking methods that require less fat. Baking, roasting, steaming, broiling, and dehydrating will concentrate flavors of the items being cooked. When designing recipes, consider removing ingredients that will unnecessarily disqualify a dish from fitting into a preferred category. For example using flour in sauces or butter for cooking could be avoided and allows us to list more dishes as GF, DF, or VG.
We think about ways to substitute items that will help accommodate more guests and make our food more interesting. Toasted chickpeas or rice cakes, for example, could replace the crispiness of croutons in a salad.
We train our cooks to think about what ingredients they use and how they cook with them. We correct old habits by setting up stations with the correct ingredients and continually educating the team. We taste the food with team members.
With respect to special orders during service, the expeditor and the cooks in each station review special notes on orders. They must mark tickets and pay particular attention to the preferences. Once the dish is dressed, we mark the plate with a sticker. It will be easy to recognize the dish being altered. We only remove the sticker at the table so our guests will see that we followed through by accommodating their requests.
Our culinary team prepares detailed food notes that include pictures, ingredients (including their sourcing), and cooking preparations. In order to ease the process of preparing special orders, we train with the use of readiness alternatives. We make that part of the training and the food descriptions.
3. MENU MERCHANDISING
In order to avoid much back and forth between guests and our servers, we mark menu items with little icons. We focus upon clear directions and clean presentation. Because our cooking methods have helped us to identify more items within dietary categories, our menu will read in a friendlier fashion to patrons who are ingredient sensitive. We understand that our guests will review menus online and visit social media platforms before deciding to join us for a meal. Our dietary and preference-friendly menu will be noticed and recommended through word-of-mouth.
Pictures and videos are great ways by which to merchandise our menu items and communicate about the quality of the ingredients and cooking preparation. Beautiful images that are accompanied by clear descriptions will naturally communicate to our customers information about the various dietary preferences offered.
4. SERVICE TRAINING
We are not nutritionists. The menu is built to cater to preferences in a convenient way. We allow guests who care about their food choices to have a seamless experience. We teach our staff to cater to preferences the same way as they cater to allergies. We don’t question the guests, but accommodate whenever possible.
We keep the messages positive by using dietary preferences as opposed to dietary restrictions. We treat preferences as if they were specific allergies. The front of house team must be accommodating, and they absolutely must follow through and execute. When a ticket is rung, the dietary preference is indicated with the position number as a general comment, and then items that need substitution are notated below. Communication among team members is key. If a guest mentions he or she is GF, we must ensure that all items going to that person are GF. This is especially true for items that are gifted to the guests, such as a small amuse-bouche, bread, or dessert.
We keep copious notes on our guests and their dietary preferences. This way, we are able to anticipate for their next experience with us. We are specific as to who in the party has communicated specific preferences. We know that with consistency we will create repeat guests who will become regulars and, in time, raving fans.
