What a treat to sit down for a 7 course meal! It’s wonderful to enjoy a feast with family or friends. Many people choose fine dining restaurants for a special occasion, so the food must not disappoint.Fine dining requires a lot of attention to details and no detail is ever too small to pay attention to, in fine dining. The standards you should always include in fine dining are fine china, glassware and flatware - no paper or plastic, while tablecloths is a ''must have'' in fine dining.
The three main areas to focus for a fine dining are the menu with finest food, service and atmosphere
The Menu
Your menu needs to be interesting and offer unique items that customers don’t find at other restaurant. The chef needs to exercise with his creativity when designing dishes.
You need to choose a theme for your menu, and try to have fun with it. And don’t forget the wine! Your wine list should complement your menu. Each wine should be paired with each individual dish. Work together with your sommelier to find the best options.
There are not any "rules" unless you are looking to do a traditional night like - French, Italian, Japanese....etc., course meal. The meal needs to build up consistent.
Here I made a list of “DON’T'' to show you the way I build the menu and the way I think about it:
- don't serve same proteins one after another;
- don't serve two seafood courses one after another (unless you have a shell fish night menu), or two meat courses;
- start with lighter fare, and then go on to the heavy;
- serve seafood before meat;
- Don’t treat – “amuse- bouche” like a course;
- don't serve the same cooking method more than once;
- don't serve more than one salad, or soup, or pasta;
- don't do heavy dish after heavy dish;
- don't mix in the same menu fancy dishes with fast food style dishes.
The goal is not to feed them massive quantities of food with each course, make everyone enjoying themselves, you must "school" your clients. None of the courses need to be heavy; they need to be in balance with the course before and the course after.
Here are some samples of menu I made and are easy to make.
You control and form the evening with the courses, let everyone come in and relax, with a glass of champagne and some ''amuse-bouche'' from the chef - should be the way to start the evening.
Confit of duck with spice cauliflower and yogurt sauce.
Smoked salmon pate with salmon roe on a smoked crouton.
The first course: Time for a fresh salad, tartar or light appetizer.
Duck pate with baby pears, dry fruit compote and mango coulis.
Tomato jelly with Catalan herbs olive oil.
Salmon tartare with sweet mustard sauce.
Venison carpacio.
The second course: Soup is on!
All kind of soup can be serve. Here i made Lobster bisque with salmon pate and tiger prawns.
The third course: Traditionally the third course will feature a sorbet to cleanse the palate. A nice lemon or lime sorbet would do nicely. It’s perfectly fine to prepare this dish the day prior your meal.
Margarita granita sorbee.
The fourth course: This can be poultry, fish or shellfish.
Butter fish with sweet potato mash, kumquats salad and lemon butter.
Black ink risotto with tiger prawns.
Cod wrapped in Parma ham with ink risotto and Parmesan biscuit.
Banana prawns with sushi rice , wasabi and white radish salad.
Seared scallops with cauliflower puree, baby salad and truffle oil.
The fifth course: This will be a call for a red meat dish.
Seared Tuna file with wasabi mash, 4 flying fish caviar, wakame salad and teriaky sauce.
Slow cooked beaver in a filo pastry served with cumin sweet potato , red currant chutney and curry foam.
Reindeer file with dates puree, sugar beans and almond snow.
The sixth course: I usually made a small pre dessert.
Blue cheese and chocolate truffles.
Marinate grapes in mint and champagne with rosemary truffles.
Organic chocolate truffles with pure gold.
The seventh course: Dessert of course! It’s always hard to choose just one dessert.
Chocolate mocka tart.
Chocolate Oblivion with raspberry puree and Passion fruit.
Lady Angel. Poached orange in Cointreau serve with cocos biscuit and Cointreau sauce.
Service
All of the details that are expected of a fine dining server require that your staff be rigorously trained. They should be able to answer any and all questions customers may have about a menu or item or wine. Customer service in a fine dining restaurant it goes far beyond taking an order and delivering food. Fine dining services include:
- escorting customers to the table;
- holding the chair for women;
- cleaning the table in between courses;
- replacing napkins if a customer leaves the table;
- explaining menu items without notes;
- serving food directly on the plate at the table;
- Sommelier should serve the wine and provide any information is needed.
The most important fine dining serving etiquette is to be polite to the customers and to give equal attention to all the guests. The food should be served from the right of the customer and the table should be cleared from the left.
Atmosphere
In fine dining music is playing subtly in the background and should reflect the theme of the night, such as classical for a traditional fine dining restaurant or jazz for something modern, the rest of the atmosphere is up to you. Don’t forget, dining in a fine restaurant need to be a nice elegant way to have a meal and is relaxing and fun.
Enjoy.
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