Plating To Taste

-- Hotels, 10/1/2007

With small plates making the transition from trendy to tried-and-true, chefs throughout the world are looking to innovative, functional and even more colorful designs to help creatively present their concoctions.

"For some I use solid white, for some I use color, and for some glass-we like a different look for variety," says Ken Gladysz, executive chef at Hotel Hershey in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

At that property, small plates can be found in fine-dining restaurant the Circular Dining Room, or even incorporated into small, high-end banquets. In the restaurant, the tastes may sit on buffet lines-"it's a nice personal touch when somebody can get something individual," Gladysz says-or they may come to the table in the form of an amuse bouche or dessert.

"Little plates [usually are] as complicated as big ones-they can't just have one component," Gladysz notes. "So it may be brie with frisee lettuce, vinaigrette, fresh fruit chutney, and garnished with roasted pecan. They have to stand on their own."

New designs from various china manufacturers are helping small plates do just that, and chefs appreciate the assistance.

"I love all the new small plates coming out," says Alex Stratta, executive chef at ALEX restaurant in the Wynn Las Vegas. "A lot of stuff coming out really enhances presentation. I've seen some incredible glass plates [and] some very shallow dishes. I love the frosted glass, the super-delicate stuff that looks like it's just about to break."

We use small plates all over the place in different ways, with different shapes for different times of day and for different styles of menus," says Patrick Gioannini, food and beverage director at the Mandarin Oriental New York.

At Japanese restaurant Asiate, Chef de Cuisine Nori Sugie incorporates glass creations into his lunch bento box offerings, for example, which contain six small tastings of chef specialties.

Thanks in part to the presentation, "the bento box concept is quite successful," Gioannini says. "People are very interested in that. It is a full lunch in one box, served with a dessert."

In addition to the bento boxes, Asiate features for lunch 10 to 12 à la carte small plate creations, each presented in a unique manner. Guests start with a minimum of two and can add on any others as desired.

Selecting the china for such items "is a combination of [chef] getting inspiration from the food he's going to serve and trying to find the perfect shape or container [that is] naturally fitted," Gioannini says. "It is knowing already what you want to do and getting excited by a new shape you see, and combining those two things together to see what looks beautiful."

The Japanese style and design sensibility is not exclusive to Japanese restaurants, of course.

"I love the Japanese sensibility when it comes to presentation," Stratta says. "You can do something as French as a bouillabaisse and put it on something, and it has an Asian flavor to it. I think you can give dish a different personality with different plateware."

I love little plates; I just don't like to inundate people with lots of them at the same time," Stratta says. "I think you should really focus on the one thing in front of you."

Tasting menus allow for this, and certain vessels can aid in bringing out big flavors in just one or two bites.

At Asiate, an eight-course tasting menu starts with a first plate called "raw." It is a selection of five raw tastings, each served with Japanese spoon.

"There is a long rectangular charger with five little spoons in front of you," Gioannini explains. "So you get a multi-flavored presentation in one plate to start."

At the pan-Asian Echo restaurant in the Breakers Resort, Palm Beach, Florida, the menu is divided into five categories corresponding to the five elements. Small plates represent the wind element and are presented in dramatic fashion on a mix of clear and opaque glass with varied textures.

"We are always looking for that 'a-ha' idea in food preparation and presentation," says Anthony Sicignano, executive chef, restaurants at The Breakers.

Sculpted, scalloped and compartmented plates and irregularly shaped dishes make up some of the most interesting new tabletop designs. Bowls are more shallow, tasters are flatter, and mini-wells invite creative plating of chefs' concoctions.

"I've become a lot more open-minded to different types of plateware and shapes and sizes," Stratta says. "I'll adapt the dish to the shape of the plate. Plateware is a huge vehicle to modernize my [traditional] cooking."

Whether deconstructing a traditional dish or lining up vegetables around a center-of-plate element, "the modern touch comes from how we plate it," Stratta says.

Asked if he ever searches out or purchases pieces designed for specific foods, Stratta laughs. "I cook seasonally with what's available," he says. "If I were to buy a plate for every dish every six weeks, I'd have a problem."