Flight of fancy
Writing a restaurant menu requires a particular skill. I’m not talking about dreaming up the recipe, experimenting, testing, tasting and presenting, although that demands talent, too. No, I mean choosing the right words, punctuation and turnsof-phrase to make the dish sound appetising and ultimately sell.
Some menus are exercises in economy and restraint, with dishes being described simply using commaseparated ingredients. Fergus Henderson does this to great effect at St John in Clerkenwell where a recent menu included a dish written as: “Rabbit, mustard, bacon”. Not much room for fat there.
But there are menus that go the other way, over-describing and chronically mansplaining. One restaurant recently handed its staff a list of preferred words for describing its daily specials. Here’s the list: “magic, dollop, beautiful, awesome, scrummy, lively, proper rustic, rocking, hearty, mega, harmonious, dished up, classic, feel-good, bliss, fancy, marvellous”. Quite. There is no
THE ACCIDENTAL COOK Bin boring burgers at your next barbecue and stick to Russell Norman’s rustic Italian
hunters’ kebabs
question that a skilfully described plate of food can increase orders, but there are other tricks, too. Throwing in a foreign word on a menu will often pique diners’ interest and encourage them to ask the waiter exactly what it is. The act of verbally describing the dish works like a little sales pitch and is frequently effective at selling it.
There are certain words that tend to work very well. “Crispy” is a good example. It communicates texture and the promise of crunch. (The food writer/chef Simon Hopkinson hates it, however. He thinks we should be using “crisp” instead.) Particular ingredients can also really sell.
I can never resist anything that comes with a “soft-poached egg” and, in summer, dishes containing
“broad beans, peas and mint” get me every time.
There is another category, though, and that is menu items that tell a story. If you can engage the diner in a narrative that puts the dish beyond the paper and ink of the menu, the chances are they will order it. This week’s recipe is a barbecue dish with an intriguing tale of failure and triumph behind it.
Everyone loves a barbecue, me especially. But as the summer has worn on, I’ve found myself a little bored with all the usual barbecue suspects. I recently made these kebabs, which originate in the Veneto region of Italy, specifically from the foothills of the Dolomite mountains.
I have seen them described as oseleti scampai spiedini (“escaped birds skewers”). Their name originates
This week’s recipe is a barbecue dish with an intriguing tale of failure and triumph behind it
in failed hunting trips in decades gone by. When the huntsmen were unlucky — or terrible shots — rather than return home empty-handed, they would visit a butcher for his last scraps of the day. These chunks of offal, veal, pancetta would be handed over to disappointed wives with the excuse, “Sorry, love, all the birds escaped.”
I put these on the menu at Polpo, too, and everyone asked what they were. The waiter’s little story about the hunter, the butcher and the wife seemed to do the trick, and the dish flew out. No pun intended.
Russell Norman is the founder of Polpo and Spuntino;
Instagram: russell_norman; russellnorman.net