EAT magazine
Subject: Menu development
Issue: May/June 2005
Author: Jane Mundy

R&D Inc.

Every restaurant does menu development. But places like Earls and Cactus Club are turning it in a business and—with the help of top chefs—an art.

by Jane Mundy

It came as a surprise to many in the restaurant industry that Michael Noble, Iron Chef challenger, Bocuse d’Or competitor and first chef at Diva at the Met, was working at Earls. For some, it sounded like a step down. But for Noble there were many reasons. “Part of what chefs are about is to never walk the same path, and I had done that for 10 years as head chef, and I wasn’t interested in going back,” he says. Menu development was the next logical step. “The amazing thing is the energy that made me come into this business in the first place … it’s like a rebirth, a huge learning curve,” Noble says.

And at Earls, the infrastructure is there to invest in the best. Several years ago, when Noble was at Diva at the Met, Earls approached him to work in their test kitchen, but at that time he declined. Stuart Fuller was in charge of product development and, although he didn't have a deep culinary background, he was clever: by working with other chefs and tapping into their expertise, the company would then “Earlize” the dish for to make it their own. So why now hire Noble when they could just keep on Earlizing? “I’m giving them 24 years of experience,” explains Noble, “and fresh eyes, because I wasn’t brought up in the Earls system.”
Michael Noble has been director of culinary and product development for just a few months and “still feels wet behind the ears,” but he is getting comfortable with the Earls vision and where to take it. Although the test kitchen is in North Vancouver, “part of my time is in the kitchen [in Calgary] … I’ll take a prep table when the restaurant isn’t busy and bring in special ingredients.” And every four to six weeks he is on the road, mainly conducting tastings and coordinating with heads of departments in North Vancouver. “I’m going to Sonoma in April, then Las Vegas and New York City,” Noble says. Being a family man, he tries to make the visits short. Right now, he is focusing on the fall/winter menu, which will hit all 50-plus Earls November 3. Timeframe is crucial when so many cooks are involved; even the part-timers have to be trained.

It goes like this: Now until July: Monthly tastings at head office and focus groups with certain customers. July to late August: Michael Noble trains regional chefs, conducts tastings and reproduces dishes. September to late October: All items are tested to get customer response (i.e., how many are sold), and every region has a test “store” (Earls-speak for restaurant). Each item is fine-tuned and adjusted so each regional chef will be familiar with every detail. November 3: Launch new menu.

Another part of menu development is learning about systems: how to make a consistent product, from Fort McMurray to Robson Street. And it’s about communications. “We couldn’t do this without digital technology,” says Noble. Each recipe is illustrated by a digital picture so every cook knows the presentation. “The true test will be looking at the food coming off the pass and recognizing my dish,” says Noble. As for future plans, he hopes that “five years from now, everyone is looking at Earls and saying, ‘I wish we’d thought of that.’”

Michael Noble got the bug in his ear to work in menu development from Chris Mills, another Bocuse d’Or competitor and Diva at the Met chef. Mills is vice-president of culinary operations at Joey’s Global Grill and is as excited as Noble about his job. “It’s an unbelievable line of work, both in variety and challenge,” says Mills. He took the helm three years ago with nine restaurants. Now there are 18, having bought nine of the Italian restaurant chain Cucina Cucina from Wolfgang Puck in Washington, Oregon. Mills’s time is divided almost equally: cooking, travel and training. And he hires guest chefs to work in product development. “I have espionage agents all over the world,” he laughs. The food biz is a tight network. Kevin Cherkas, his apprentice from Diva, “is now at Arzak [restaurant] in Spain; they have a full lab and we e-mail constantly.” Mills says the style of cooking coming out of Spain is half peasant, half lab food, “so we stay ahead of the curve by bringing in top-notch training, the latest techniques and a solid approach to quality food by searching the world.”

Mills also keeps ahead of the curve closer to home by researching and developing new equipment. Right now they are thinking high-tech mini gyoza-taco makers. Working for a larger chain means you can bring in manufacturers and suppliers to work together. “We work with the manufacturer to have something built such as a low-profile rotisserie oven [not as wide as the norm] that can be wall-mounted. Nothing out there is made like this, and this item is proprietary.”

Menu development means sourcing new suppliers and new products for [[product development?]] chef Dan Close and the Cactus Club Café as well. It also means looking outside their comfort zone, which means looking worldwide to find dishes that work for their market. Developing a dish can take a few months or it can take 12. For example, their West Coast Pockets, sushi rice with smoked salmon in a deep-fried tofu “pocket,” took more than a year, “but now it is extremely successful because we took our time,” says Close, [[who spent five years at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel before joining Cactus Club?]] [[would it be nice to have a little background on him? Ok?]]. Some recipes are more complicated, and supply issues, seafood in particular, can be a logistics nightmare. “We got some of the first halibut but couldn’t supply all our 15 locations due to volume … Alberta is a huge challenge,” says Close.

The Cactus Club philosophy is to entertain guests; they want customers to come for an experience rather than necessity. “We want our menus to be exciting and fun,” says Close, “to give [customers] new and creative options with everything fresh.” Fish tacos are a big seller, but even that dish was re-launched, tweaked and changed. The fish is cooked differently, a new sauce is added—all part of menu development.
The regulars at Vancouver’s Ash Street Cactus Club play a major role in the process. Once a dish has been evaluated in the test kitchen, it goes upstairs to the restaurant for a four- to eight-week test: customers provide feedback with comment cards and, because they feel part of the decision-making process, response is almost 100 percent.

So what does menu development mean for the consumer? When asked if, for example, David Hawksworth at West wants to order Joey’s designer rotisserie oven, Mills says, “sure, he can call us.” It’s all about raising the bar. “Michael Noble [being at Earls] means more competition, so we just have to work harder,” says Mills. Every restaurant does menu development to some extent, but places like Earls, Joey’s Global Grill and Cactus Club have turned it into a business. Chain restaurants are making leaps in the food industry; after all, they represent a huge percentage of the market. Competition with the upscale casual market has intensified and, according to Dan Close, “Everyone has to do what it takes to stay in the game.”

“I didn’t have the time the way I do now,” says Mills about his new career. “You would just give up on something. But at the end of the day, if you try to play catch-up and follow the leader, if your business model is trying to do what others are doing, you are missing research and development.” Sage advice, and not just for the food business.