Bonus: Making A Menu

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0:05Michael Tusk:Game night rush, or any night of the week, really. Genius keeps every order moving. From online ordering, to your kitchen, to the front counter. Big league reliability for any business. That's genius. Ruthie's Table 4, presented by Sky.

0:28there's always a sort of nuance of writing a menu and then obviously paying attention to the kind of house rules and the house style and you know i couldn't do like a sort of asian salad with the soul for example it has to be within the the brief and then peas we've got peas on um with a salad with the longostines uh with a crab on polenta and then slow cooked with a monkfish with pancetta because peas are like slap-banging season now. And then got the first of the years, dattarini tomatoes that have just come up from Italy. So that's with batarga. And then we've got that also with... You've got the batarga grape...

1:05I did the salad that we had in Milan. Do you remember? We had this salad in Milan, which was just mashed leaves and dattarini tomatoes. And we thought it was a carrot salad. Do you remember? We were like, oh, let's have a carrot salad. But it turned out it was batarga on top. That was at La Latarilla, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. And that, so that's a really nice, super fresh. And then, um, where do the white asparagus

1:27Michael Tusk:come from? Uh, France. Okay. Yeah. It's just like, it's asparagus in peak season now as well. So the English stuff is beautiful. And then the French stuff is also, we're like still in the springtime. So it's pretty interesting. Each time I go to a restaurant, I keep saying like the Dottorini tomatoes and we haven't seen anything like that yet. So it's exciting. And then we've got nettles that have been and they're just starting to finish now and then when I've written the menu and then because we've got a set menu that's running alongside that today and then I have all the chefs that are working so I just try and give everyone jobs that are nice for them so so other other restaurants well traditionally you might have somebody who's on the salads for a month or the grill for a month is that the way I've only worked in one restaurant that's this one so I know how other kitchens do work but what we do is we say that we come and we see who's working and so you've had how many chefs do you have today 10 10 yeah and so we'll say you know the complex positions are what we call hots one which is a wood oven i and we have and every section we have we have the grill we have the wood oven we have hearts what we call two which is the um pastas, pizzas, and so we, and every section of the, has a fish and a meat.

2:47So we might grill the sea bass and grill the beef, and then we'll do a slow roasted veal, and we'll do mullfish in the oven, and then on the, in the roasted, and then in the wood oven, we'll have game. We always put the game, a whole bird, if it's pigeon or grouse or partridge or pheasant, that will be done on in the wood oven. And then the fish, we usually do Dover sole in the wood oven. Sometimes we grill them, but mostly they're... So you have, everybody has a fish and a meat, fish and a meat, because we only have six main courses. And so I think that's the decision, who you're going to put on these sections.

3:25I think what's quite cool is the fact that the chefs don't know what sections they're on. Yeah, that was going to be my question. When did they find out? About half past ten. And so the younger chefs, like this guy here, he's doing a trial today. So he's got a really easy job, like washing asparagus. But then I also gave him aioli to make because I thought, let's see if he can make aioli. It's kind of classic thing. And so he's, obviously, he's not going to be doing a difficult section. He's not going to make a risotto. Yeah, but then everyone else will be playing to their strengths today. But it stops chefs.

3:59You know, in classic kitchens, people have sections and then they hoard kits and make loads of mise en place for like the week and hide it. And none of that can happen. Everything has to be, there's no...

4:11Michael Tusk:That's wonderful. Yeah, you can stash things away. No bad habits. Yeah, and I remember when I started here thinking, I said, impossible, you can't cut parsley to order. Of course you have to cut it for the week. You know, and then I was blown away. And now I can't imagine how you can have, I mean, that's just how it is here, you know, but I can't imagine how. So then, so this is, so this is hearts, we see there's hearts one, which is a wood oven, HOTS 2 is the pasta, 3 is roasting in the oven. 4 is a sort of new section that we had, not terribly new, but the idea that a person on HOTS 2 making pastas can get overwhelmed.

4:50So we try and put one pasta or risotto on HOTS 4. And they'll also do one of the antipastas. We do seared scallops, so we do balenta with some then mushrooms in the winter. So that's the 4. And then we have the grill. six is yeah just doing hot spec here might be a langoustine again just two things or a carne crudo and then we have the cold section and pizzas so you know

5:22Michael Tusk:is there a prep team also that's in earlier than well no we have some people who do prep they do like the spinach and peeled potatoes and chop the chilies and things like that So that's stuff the chefs don't have to do. They just have to cook. We also have waiters do it too. Yeah, and the waiters. It's always been a tradition that everyone participates. As we've gotten bigger, it's harder because we have the cafe, we have the private dining room, and we have a lot more people than we used to have for this kitchen, which was really designed in 2008. And so the kitchen porters do the scallops, the waiters peel the garlic, they learn how to clean an anchovy, they chop the chili.

6:03So in a way, if they're stopped and asked by a customer what's in themselves severity, they know because they helped prepare. But as we've gotten sort of bigger, we do have people who have a lot of questions. Do you have questions? Yeah. How do you do that?

6:21Michael Tusk:Now, I actually do sit down with everybody. Like, they all come to you, sit down and give them their assignments. Well, sometimes if I've got like an experienced team, like today, I'll write the menu and then everyone will come and have a chat about this and that, you know. And then I'll say, you know, what do you want to do? You can do anything if you're a good chef. And then Carlotta, who's one of our, you know, top chefs, was making the zucchini sauce. And she just said to me, are you OK if I do whatever I want sort of thing? And I was like, yeah, because what she's going to make will be amazing.

6:52and she knows what I want and what style, like every chef will have their style and she'll know, she just is so good and I'll just, yeah, you know, make what you want. Really, well that sounds really vague, but with people that have worked at the River Cafe for like 10 plus years, there's just such good cooks that you know.

7:09Michael Tusk:You just kind of look at them and they know what you're looking for. Yeah, they know what they're doing. They know the repertoire. We don't have line cooks. I think that's a big difference, you know, that we've seen, which I think, you know, in other kitchens, you know, way you have maybe just one or two chefs but then everybody they're brilliant you know and that's what how rose my partner um my malay partner started that's how she learned to cook in new york she said she was taught to cook not by the chefs at pasties or about you know keith mcnally's restaurants by the line cooks right yeah so the person's making the aioli and do they have the ability to like make it in a mortar and pestle compared to like using a machine because that's always one of the problems yeah because I was like after he said I was like how how are you going to make aioli just to see if he knew what it was and then he first of all said well I'm going to make it in the food processor and I said to him well I actually said can you you can make it with a whisk if you like I didn't say make it in a pestle and mortar I thought that he might just walk straight back out but I thought let's see if he can make it with a whisk as a starting point before we go for the machine and then check that it tastes good but we had then we had a just a last minute catastrophe when we found out that the longest scenes aren't here because they'd be coming by train and the train's delayed so we've just had to take that whole dish off and then reprint a hundred more menus without it on so that all the people aren't like oh it was really fancy the longest scenes.

8:40They're stuck in traffic.

8:43Michael Tusk:I actually used to do something similar where Lindsay can attest to. I would just kind of come in and then I remember what I was around. The night before we lived like two blocks from the original location and then I would rewrite the menu every day until it started to drive. Some folks a little baddie. But it lasted for a good first six or so years where I rewrote the menu every day and would change things. We do think about it, especially thinking of the younger chefs that also get to write menus, whether it's better to have just us write menus and then being more standard. But it is part of the uniqueness that there's going to be a whole other menu tonight.

9:25And it is really free because you just think, what do I want to cook today? And then you think about all the people that everyone comes here for a different reason, don't they? Some people are having a working lunch. Some people are having a celebration. and the menu has to cover all of that but it's such a you know I've worked here for 26 years because it is so every day is different yeah you know and that I think is keeps you going yeah exactly yeah even out of shape and ease like if you had the menu and you'd sit down at one

9:55Michael Tusk:one o 'clock for dinner you had you're working in the fireplace or the rotisserie yeah the hearth you'd have to go on the walk-in grab your four lambs all whole lambs then break them down there at that time and be ready by you know five o 'clock to give uh whoever the chef was a tester a tester and right yeah so i always kind of grew up being able to start at that level and not uh walk in having something like cryovector exactly and so forth so it's all yeah you know it you see the quality and then you exactly so no that's great so it's as simple as that so that's it's as simple as that so as a pizza genius i know pizza shop orders come from well everywhere with genius by global payments online orders actually sink straight into your kitchen it's as simple as pie And with digital menu boards, your specials, your prices, your brand, always front and center.

11:01Michael Tusk:It's one system, ready for game night crowds. Any night of the week, really. Big league reliability for any business. That's genius. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.