APPETIZERS: The Small Plate Trend Continues
by Tim Ellison

Appetizers? No one really calls them that any more, at least not on their menu. You’ll see starters, amusé, small plates, or any other menu speak, just not appetizers. Now it’s not unusual to see entire restaurant menus solely made up of small plates and appetizer-style presentations. There are tasting menus with up to 24 courses of tiny bites of food ($200 per person, food only). I blame the music video industry for the appetizer craze. People just can’t sit still long enough for a whole entrée.

The hippest trend in today’s foodservice sector is to feature a solid core of consistent and reliable entrées (chicken, steak, burger, pasta, duck, pizza, etc.), and spice things up with a variety of internationally influenced appetizers. The emphasis on small plates encourages sharing of food, ordering more portions than normal, and experimenting with new types of dishes as the small size means the commitment isn’t so great. 

If you order a lousy entrée, it ruins your meal and is pretty hard to recover from, but a disappointing small plate will usually be forgotten when the next, hopefully more appealing dish comes along. The guests get variety each time they visit, a more interactive and stimulating dining experience, and quicker service. This produces positive experiences and repeat guests. It costs way less to keep someone coming back than to attract someone new.
What’s in it for you? Lower food cost, higher contribution and profit, ease of production and service as well as something simple to up and suggestive sell. These small plates usually command a reasonably high price and with it an attractive lower cost percentage. The guest perceives better value by sharing three $8.50 apps and then splitting a $25.00 entrée, and at least you get your $25 average check. Guests in all types of dining establishments seem comfortable sharing food amongst themselves these days.

Appetizers seem to be able to command a higher selling price than ever these days. Upscale restaurants have items ranging from $9.00 for marinated olives to over $20.00 for fatted goose liver with truffled celery root purée. Vancouver’s Feenie’s restaurant has an entire menu dedicated to appetizer presentations with sides of potato salad and green beans going for $6.00 each. Even mid-scale restaurants have items from $6.95 (calamari) to $8.95 - $10.95. Sides going for $2.95 give good food cost (dips, bread and butter, fries) smaller apps (a couple of bites of very flavourful foods such as scallops, prawns, better cuts of beef, pork, duck - the luxury stuff) sell for even more. Substantial platter presentations can start at $19.95 and potentially go all the way up to $75.00 or more for multi-plate seafood towers with items like butter poached lobster, smoked fish, and a variety of caviar. 
Another pricing strategy to employ is to offer a few of your key starters in various sizes at different price levels (single, half dozen, dozen, pound, etc.). This will help drive up average check. A slightly larger portion of a really good item for only a couple of bucks more would be an easy sale in today’s large portion society. Operators are featuring appetizer trios that are different takes on a single ingredient such as chicken, duck, oysters, tomatoes, or potatoes. These could be presented on custom wooden boards that fit a small plate with a different presentation of the theme ingredient for prices in the upper teens. They make natural pairings for beer or wine flights as well. Match a trio presentation of a food item to three different tasters. Sounds like quite an adventure.
A good technique is to bundle appetizers together. Offer your guests the opportunity to mix and match different items on a large share platter for a slightly lower selling price. If the items are carefully planned, you can achieve very low cost percentages, which will translate into a bigger contribution per item. Always give your servers the opportunity to upsell by having a variety of sides, dips, and other options available, which are designed to increase sales and enhance guest experiences. You can partner these with pails of beer or pitchers of micro-brewed draught, mint juleps, or mojitos.

Servers love the small plate trend. It is easy to transport multiple small plates and there is not as much pressure to observe any kind of correct order of service. Guests seem happy to receive the dishes in the order the kitchen produces them. This takes a lot of pressure off the kitchen and allows fewer workers to handle larger volumes of guests. Plus, it is possible to have a number of cold items that can be partially pre-prepared for speed of delivery during crunch times. The Salt Tasting Room in Vancouver’s Blood Alley has virtually no kitchen and serves a variety of bread, warm imported cheese, local charcuterie, and pickles.

There are no problems selling additional courses, and multiple desserts are a snap, and can be offered with matching dessert wines or coffee drinks. Guests also keep service simple by utilizing a single small plate, and usually keeping one set of cutlery while the server just brings and clears the plates. This keeps less items going through the dishwasher, and allows operators to keep leaner small wares inventories.

Operators can add interest by using different styles and types of plates, and even consider presentations that gain vertical height by using glassware like martini glasses and the like. You can also offer unusual utensils like chopsticks, won ton soup spoons, and other specialty cutlery. Multi-level, tiered plates make better utilization of space and can help with smaller tables and tight places. This is especially useful in bars and lounges where tabletops tend to be smaller.

Hot new restaurants are dedicating more and more valuable menu space to small plates designed for sharing. This has allowed more adventure in dining, and keeps the experience fresh for the guests. You too can benefit from this trend by featuring low cost, higher priced items that create a higher average check, while easing production costs and service pressures at the same time. 

Tim Ellison, a cook by trade, is the President of the British Columbia Wine Appreciation Society www.bcwas.com and Sommelier with Rocky Mountain Wines www.rockywines.com.