Epicurious - The 6 Rules of Plating Used in Restaurants | Epicurious 101
Ann Ziata, a professional chef, shares six techniques to improve plating skills, treating the plate as a canvas. She emphasizes the importance of choosing the right plate for different foods, using a wide shallow bowl for pasta to create a more expansive look. She demonstrates adding garnishes like Parmesan cheese and basil to enhance contrast and visual appeal. For soups, she suggests leaving space at the top of the bowl and adding contrasting elements like creme fraiche and croutons to make the dish visually interesting.
Ziata highlights the significance of height in plating, using chicories and radicchio for salads to add color and contrast. She advises against overcrowding the plate and suggests using elements like kabocha squash to build height. Negative space is another key element, as it adds contrast and drama, allowing the dish to breathe. Ziata demonstrates this with a pea puree and scallops, emphasizing the importance of presentation side up for visual appeal. Finally, she discusses highlighting the key ingredient, such as a steak, by slicing it to show the inside and using sauces underneath to avoid covering the main element. These techniques transform ordinary dishes into visually appealing, high-end presentations.
Key Points:
- Choose the right plate to enhance the dish's presentation; use wide bowls for pasta to create an expansive look.
- Add garnishes like Parmesan and basil to increase contrast and visual appeal.
- Incorporate height in plating using elements like chicories and radicchio for salads.
- Utilize negative space to add contrast and drama, allowing the dish to breathe.
- Highlight the key ingredient by slicing and using sauces underneath to avoid covering it.
Details:
1. Introduction to Plating Techniques 🍽️
- Ann Ziata, a professional chef and culinary instructor, focuses on elevating plating skills, emphasizing the artistic aspect of culinary presentation.
- The session covers six specific techniques to enhance plating proficiency, vital for improving overall dining experiences.
- Plating 101, the name of the course, suggests an introductory yet essential exploration of these techniques.
- Plating is crucial in culinary arts as it influences the diner's perception and overall experience of the dish.
2. Choosing the Right Plate for Your Dish 🍝
- Select wide shallow bowls for pasta to create a spacious and relaxing appearance, avoiding cramped looks from soup bowls.
- Use plates with a slight slope to hold sauce effectively, enhancing the visual presentation.
- Employ tongs to shape pasta aesthetically on the plate, creating an appealing structure.
- Ensure plates are clean and visually appealing using a damp paper towel or napkin, a common practice in professional kitchens.
- Enhance contrast and appeal with garnishes like Parmesan cheese and fresh basil, making the dish more inviting.
- Create height and clear focal points in the plating to increase the dish's attractiveness.
3. Creating Visual Contrast 🌈
- Contrast can be achieved by combining different textures, like soft and crunchy elements, to enhance the sensory experience.
- Visual appeal is heightened by using color contrast. For instance, adding creme fraiche to butternut squash soup introduces a striking color difference.
- Incorporating crunchy croutons into a smooth, pureed soup provides a textural contrast that enriches the dish's complexity.
- Fresh green garnishes, such as chopped chives, offer a vibrant contrast against cooked ingredients, adding freshness and visual interest.
- Leaving space at the top of a bowl when plating frames the dish, highlighting contrasts and enhancing the presentation.
4. Importance of Height in Plating ⛰️
- Height adds drama and elegance, transforming dishes into more visually appealing and three-dimensional presentations.
- Organizing elements like a focal point can improve the appearance of a dish, as demonstrated in a salad makeover example.
- Using chicories instead of spinach adds color contrast and prevents wilting, maintaining visual interest.
- Adjusting vinaigrette application helps preserve the height and structure of a salad.
- Creating drama through oversized elements like kabocha wedges serves as a base to enhance visual impact.
- Natural presentation techniques, such as scattering elements kaleidoscopically, create an organized yet aesthetically pleasing appearance.
- Chopped raw pistachios provide visual appeal and enhance the dish’s color and taste with their nutty flavor.
- The transformation of the same ingredients into a visually striking dish underscores the impact of plating techniques.
5. Utilizing Negative Space 🕳️
- Negative space refers to emptiness on the plate, preventing clutter and allowing the eye to relax, thereby enhancing contrast and drama.
- A dish with pea puree, scallops, and shallot chips lacks negative space, making the elements look bunched together and obscuring shapes.
- Placing elements off-center can increase negative space, making the presentation more interesting and allowing the dish to breathe.
- Using three elements instead of two creates balance and narrative, avoiding competition between elements and providing a beginning, middle, and end.
- Smaller shallot pieces and straight lines enhance the dish’s contrast and visual appeal, while maintaining visual clarity of the scallops.
- Introducing negative space allows the dish to look more cohesive, providing a sense of balance and drama, and enabling the dish to 'breathe.'
- The final presentation highlights the beauty of negative space by allowing viewers to see through and around elements, providing relaxation for the brain.
6. Highlighting the Key Ingredient 🥩
- Highlight the main ingredient, such as a steak, without covering it in sauce or piling on other items, to emphasize its importance as the focal point of the dish.
- Replate elements to enhance presentation, aiming for a fine dining look rather than a basic cafeteria style.
- Slice the steak at an angle to showcase the meat's interior and allow it to lay more naturally on the plate.
- Apply sauce beneath the food instead of on top, to keep the main ingredient visible and emphasize the dish's presentation.
- Use a straight line of sauce following the steak's length, ensuring it complements rather than overpowers the meat.
- Contrast the steak's interior and crust, with a generous yet balanced amount of sauce, ensuring nothing obscures the meat.
- Cut vegetables differently, such as roll cuts for carrots, to add visual interest and display the inside of the vegetables.
- Place greens beneath the steak, offering a fresh and leafy contrast to the cooked meat, enhancing visual and flavor appeal.
- Integrate side vegetables like carrots and broccoli rabe cohesively, instead of separating them, to create a unified dish feel.
- Ensure visual contrast between different elements, such as the direction of steak lines and carrots, to avoid clashing and create visual interest.
- Present the dish cohesively, with all elements appearing harmonious rather than disjointed, to make it more enticing to eat.
7. Creative Plating with Desserts 🍨
- Dessert plating is an art form where creativity is key, allowing chefs to have fun and express themselves.
- A deconstructed classic s'mores with roasted marshmallows, chocolate, graham crackers, and added ice cream can make for an innovative dessert presentation.
- Using crushed graham crackers to create a path on the plate, emphasizing a natural look and directing focus towards the ice cream as a focal point, adds visual interest.
- Incorporating different shapes and textures, such as squares of ice cream and circular dollops of chocolate sauce, enhances contrast and appeal.
- Creative plating involves no strict rules, encouraging exploration and development of personal style to enhance dining experiences.
- Attention to plating details significantly enhances the presentation, making dining experiences more elegant and special.