Hot take: Should line cooks get a say in menu design or just shut up and follow the recipe?

At a brunch spot in Portland last month the sous chef told me my idea for swapping out the hollandaise for a chili oil on the eggs benedict was stupid, but then the regulars kept asking if we had anything spicy - who should have the final call on tweaks during service?

3 comments

3 Comments

emmaclark22d ago

The 15 chili flakes in the back of the fridge say it probably wasn't that deep. Line cooks touch the food every day, so they might catch a trend before the chef does, but at the end of the day the menu is the menu. Tweaks during service just slow things down and confuse the expo line, keep the specials board for the big ideas.

joel_jones22d ago

Take the head chef aside before service and ask for a five minute taste test on the new chili oil between shifts. From my experience, that simple talk saves a lot of heat on the line later.

the_wendy22d ago

Oh come on. @emmaclark is right that tweaks on the fly can mess up service, but here's the thing - if regulars are asking for something spicy every day, that's data, not just a random idea. Did the sous chef even bother to taste your chili oil before calling it stupid? I've seen cooks kill it with simple swaps that saved a dish nobody was ordering. So my question is - why should the person who never touches the food during a rush get the final say over the person who actually sees what sells and what gets sent back? Seems backwards to me.