The Midas touch
Newspapers and magazines have been awash in recent months with articles highlighting the handing back of Michelin stars and stories of chefs quitting over requests to simplify their food. As in so many other areas of public life - be it politics, the arts or fashion - the term "dumbing down" has been bandied about to describe the trend towards a more relaxed approach to eating out.
This emotive language, however, appears to have masked the fact that change is inevitable, thanks to the fresh demands of the eating-out public or the need to turn a business from one that is making a loss into one producing a profit.
There is no doubt that what customers want from a restaurant today is different from 10 or 20 years ago. People are eating out more frequently and, as a result, no longer regard the experience as the special occasion it once was. Rich, complicated dishes, therefore, do not have the same appeal they had in the past. Add to this the demand for healthier, lighter food and it is easy to see why heavyweight dining may be going out of fashion.
This is particularly so at lunchtime, when few people have the time to sit through a gastronomic feast that is labour-intensive to both cook and serve.
Most restaurateurs come into this business to make money. However, time and again it has been proved that a more comfortable living can be made from running an eaterie with a high turnover of customers paying £30 per head than it can from a restaurant serving fewer customers at £60 per head. The financial costs of maintaining a restaurant that is striving for stars and accolades are so great that those who do succeed are the exception rather than the rule.
What does this all mean for the chef who believes his culinary principles are being compromised? Is it not possible for him to produce food that is superbly cooked from fresh ingredients that also makes money and meets public demands?
"Of course it is," says Martin Lam, who has been doing exactly that for the past eight years as chef-proprietor of the 55-seat Ransome's Dock in Battersea, London. "I find it extraordinary that this idea has developed among a certain group of cooks that they can operate in isolation from the public," he says.
"If any of them truly feel that they want to cook a certain type of food without working in partnership with their employer then the time has come for them to put their neck on the block and open their own business. But I don't see many of them doing that."
Fresh approach
Lam believes that what customers want primarily from food in restaurants is well-selected ingredients, prepared sympathetically, at sensible prices. "It is not necessarily because of food scares, but just because they are so pleased to see a new breed of chicken, some organic guinea fowl, or the wonderful shorthorn beef we get from Gloucestershire - things customers won't be able to get hold of themselves or see in too many other restaurants."
For Lam, the skill in sourcing good-quality ingredients at the right price is as important as talent in the kitchen. He looks for a 68% gross profit on his food, something he can control by dealing directly with suppliers and paying promptly. Although he rarely buys items such as caviare, except for New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day, what he does buy is always the best.
Lam adds value to his prime ingredients by providing accompaniments that customers wouldn't readily prepare at home, but without masking the flavour of the central element on the plate.
He serves a shorthorn sirloin steak with a green peppercorn sauce and big chips, while the cod, which he buys direct from fishermen on Mersea Island, Essex, and which he describes as "the freshest I've ever seen", is accompanied simply by salsa verde, Jersey Royal potatoes and green beans.
It is what his customers want. An average of 650 covers a week throng to the restaurant, paying £12.50 for two courses at lunch or an average of £35 a diner, including a bottle of modest wine from Lam's award-winning wine list.
For John Campbell, head chef and director of food and beverage at Lords of the Manor, Upper Slaughter, Gloucestershire, the prime role of a chef is to make money. "Unfortunately, if this means downsizing a menu, too many chefs are too proud to do it. They would prefer to go with the quicker and easier option, such as a fillet of beef, rather than the cheaper saddle of rabbit that will take longer and more skill to cook."
While Campbell's food has earned him a Michelin star, he is constantly looking at ways of maximising turnover at his 55-seat restaurant - and this usually means providing customers with simpler and lighter dishes. "At the moment, we are looking at changing the way we serve food in the summer when guests want to be outside," he says. "So we are looking at items such as plain grilled fish accompanied by a saffron emulsion, which can be served on the lawn."
Satisfied customers
When a couple recently stayed at the 27-bedroom hotel for eight days, Campbell knew they probably wouldn't want to eat in the restaurant every night. "So after talking to them about what they liked, I came up with a number of different dishes which we served to them in their room. One night we served a ‘truffle experience' with a risotto of artichoke and truffle, and a truffle salad topped with truffled quails' eggs; another evening we produced a tagliatelle with seared tuna, followed by a fruit and cheese platter."
By giving the guests exactly what they wanted, Campbell succeeded in keeping the satisfied couple at the hotel for most of meals they took for the duration of their stay.
"I'll even serve beans on toast, if I'm asked. I'll cook some haricot beans and serve them in a fresh tomato sauce with a hint of spice, on a slice of home-made toasted bread. Whatever our guests want, we will supply," Campbell says.
It is a sentiment echoed by Mark Treasure, head chef of the 22-bedroom Feathers hotel in Woodstock, Oxfordshire. "While it might be nice to cook offbeat items such as offal and squab, customers at the Feathers prefer to eat more centre-stage ingredients such as lamb and sea bass - so these tend to form the basis of my menu," he says.
"Previously, I cooked for the guides, but now that I'm older and wiser I cook for the customers. No one is telling me to cook in a certain way, I just recognise that people want value for money."
With a busy lunchtime trade in the hotel's Whinchat Bar, Treasure has had to simplify his lunch offer in the restaurant to compete accordingly. The two-course lunch menu for £17.50 (£21 for three courses) might include a risotto of rocket, fresh Parmesan and black olive salsa as a starter, followed by fillet of cod with fresh spinach fettucine, rouille and a basil-oil dressing. As well as being easily digestible, it is food that business people, who travel from Oxford six miles away, can consume quickly.
According to Michelin, food quality has certainly not suffered as a result of Treasure's policy - he won his first star for the Feathers in January.
John Whitehead believes that the 70-seat Merchants restaurant he owns adjacent to the Lace Market hotel in Nottingham is still a quality operation despite eschewing the fine-dining menu and its associated costs that it previously offered. Dean Rogers took over as head chef from Clive Dixon earlier this year when Dixon decided he "didn't come into the industry to run the kind of kitchen" Whitehead wants.
The kind of kitchen Whitehead wants is one that delivers a gross profit of 68% instead of the previous 65%, a brigade with six chefs instead of seven, and ingredients sourced locally rather than being couriered in from all over the country. "Our customers would be insulted to think that our menus have been dumbed down for their benefit," he says. "All we've done is remove the unnecessary, fussy elements on the plate and make the food appeal to a wider audience. Clive's food was wonderful, but it didn't generate enough sales."
Whitehead says the figures vindicate the changes he made. Covers are now up by 20%, with an average of 650 being served per week. Average spend is down from £38-£40 to £31-£32 per head.
Merchants' menu - which Whitehead says is inspired by the Ivy in London - now includes dishes such as roasted scallops on mushy peas, deep-fried onion rings and mint pesto; rabbit and cider casserole with Bramley apple mash; and poached pear with brown bread ice-cream and Amaretto sabayon.
Cheaper prices
One of the most high-profile realignments of last year was at Cheznico, which replaced Chez Nico at Ninety Park Lane and triggered Nico Ladenis's handing back of his three stars to Michelin.
Head chef Paul Rhodes has been concentrating on producing a menu offering greater flexibility and variety and which is less expensive than before. Ultimately, the aim has been to create a restaurant that has wider appeal to diners of all budgets and tastes.
About one-third of the dishes are unchanged, with the rest either being replaced by simpler ones or being tweaked to remove extraneous garnishes. Old favourites such as seared escalope of foie gras on brioche with a sherry jus, and pigeon breast stuffed with chicken mousse and foie gras and wrapped in spinach, now appear alongside newer offerings such as Parmesan risotto with wild mushrooms, stuffed roast artichokes with mushrooms, and jumbo asparagus served with poached egg.
A dish such as corn-fed chicken, which used to be served sliced and fanned with baby vegetables, girolles and a ravioli of boudin blanc, is now served more simply, with the chicken on a bed of spinach without the baby vegetables.
Plated appetisers have been replaced by dishes of black and green olives and canapés, together with a basket of fresh bread, placed on each table. "It is quicker and less formal for the customer," says Rhodes.
Luxury ingredients such as truffles and caviare still appear on the menu. But now you might find a customer who orders 100g of oscietra caviare, accompanied by blinis, chopped egg and chopped shallots, for £80, sitting next to someone who wants no more than a bowl of soup for £6.
There is no minimum charge or expectation that everyone should order three courses.
The à la carte is now supplemented by a £48, three-course menu at dinner, as well as two gastronomic menus, featuring eight courses for £62 or nine courses for £75.
It would be wrong to describe the chefs featured here as having dumbed down their menus. They are all producing good food at a price and style that their market demands. In fact, it requires an intelligence to understand and recognise that this approach will go some considerable way towards creating a successful restaurant.
