I just plated my 10,000th order at the bistro

I was closing up last night and checked our kitchen's order counter. It hit exactly 10,000 since we opened. That's 10,000 plates of our signature duck confit, all plated by my hands. It made me think about the sheer muscle memory now, like my hands just know the exact spot for the frisée. Has anyone else hit a big kitchen number that made you pause?

4 comments

4 Comments

paul_taylor216mo ago

Wow, 10,000 is a serious milestone! Just a tiny thing, but I always heard "plated" means you arranged the food on the dish, not just carried it out. So if you did the actual garnishing and placement for every single one, that's even more impressive (and tiring for your wrists, I bet).

jade5176mo ago

Tiring for your wrists" is putting it lightly. Try doing 300 covers with a micro herb tweezer. Your fingers cramp into a claw. And if one sauce dot is out of line, the chef loses it. That edible architecture stuff from diana617 sounds nice until you're building the same tiny tower for the tenth hour straight. It's less art and more factory work by the end.

diana6176mo ago

Read a chef's memoir that said plating is basically edible architecture.

stone.lisa4mo ago

paul_taylor21 mentioned "tiring for your wrists" and honestly, my wrists have been sending me passive-aggressive notes for years now. I hit 10,000 plates of duck confit and I'm pretty sure my right hand is now permanently shaped like a plating spoon (you know, that claw grip). The muscle memory thing is real though - I could probably plate a perfect frisée nest in my sleep, which is good because I've definitely done it while half asleep. At this point I'm less worried about carpal tunnel and more worried that my future grandkids will have the same weird hand twitch from generations of plating habit.