Vol. XXXII · The Plate, the Menu and the Craft Plate 6 of 11menu design, menu planning, progression, variety, season, courses, light to rich, cooking methods, balance, repetition, dinner party, restaurant menu, mise en place, feasibilityTF

Designing a Menu.

A fried starter, a fried fish and a fried dessert might each be delicious. Together they make a menu nobody finishes.

Designing a menu starts with constraints: the season and what is best in it (XXVIII.10), the guests and their diets and allergies (XII.10), the budget (XXXI.5), and the kitchen — its equipment, its cooks and the time (XXIII.5). Within them, three principles guide the choices. Progression: courses usually build from light and fresh to a richer main course and come back down to something refreshing at the end, so appetite is drawn on, not exhausted. Variety: each course uses a different main ingredient, cooking method, colour and texture — not three cream sauces, not two fried courses, not salmon then trout. Coherence: the menu still feels like one meal, with a thread of style or region.

For a cook at home, the most important test is feasibility: how many dishes need the stove or the oven at the last minute? A good dinner-party menu has a cold or make-ahead starter, a main course that can rest or hold (a braise, a roast that rests, XVI.4, II.9), and a dessert finished before guests arrive, leaving one dish to cook à la minute. Restaurants apply the same logic across a whole menu: shared components and mise en place across dishes, balanced loads on each station (XXXI.1), and enough choice for vegetarians and common allergies. The workshop builds a four-course menu.

Below: a four-course menu chosen from the options you pick for each course, with each course's richness (teaching 1–5 scale) charted as a progression, the cooking methods counted for repeats, and a reading of the menu's balance.

What you will learn
Workshop
Teaching richness ratings (1 light – 5 rich) and methods: starters — crudo 1 raw, soup 2 simmered, croquettes 3 fried, salad 1 raw; fish — steamed 2, seared scallops 2 seared, fried fish 3 fried, fish in cream 4 poached; mains — roast lamb 4 roast, braised beef 5 braised, grilled chicken 3 grilled, mushroom risotto 4 simmered; desserts — sorbet 1 frozen, fruit tart 3 baked, chocolate fondant 5 baked, panna cotta 3 set. Good shape: richness peaks at the main and falls at dessert.

Light, rich, light — and cookable

Try a menu of croquettes, fried fish and chocolate fondant: two fried courses, and richness that never lets up. Swap the fish for a steamed one and the croquettes for a crudo, and the menu rises to a roast at its centre and falls to a fruit tart: the same number of courses, very different evening. The ratings are teaching values, but the shape — light, rising to the main, then lighter — is the long-standing practice of menu writers from Escoffier's era to tasting menus today.

A dinner-party checklist: one dish cooked at the last minute, the rest made ahead or resting; no two courses with the same method, main ingredient or dominant colour; one course raw or crisp, one creamy or soft; one acid accent somewhere in every course; a vegetarian path and an answer to every guest's allergy, asked in advance (XII.10); a timeline written backwards from the serving time (XXIII.5); and a dessert that does not need the oven the main course is using.

At the stove

Plan a four-course dinner for friends. Write each course's method, main ingredient, colour and richness, and check for repeats before you shop.

The order of a French classical dinner — hors d'oeuvre, soup, fish, entrée, roast, salad, entremets, dessert — is a codified progression; the modern three-course meal is a compressed version of it.

Terms

Progression
The rise and fall of richness through a menu.
Variety
No repeated methods, ingredients or colours.
À la minute
Cooked at the last minute, to order.
Feasibility
Whether the kitchen can cook the menu in time.
Design the menu as a whole: progress light → rich → light, vary method, ingredient, colour and texture, follow the season, and make it feasible — only one dish à la minute at home.

Sources

  1. A. Escoffier, Le Guide culinaire, 1903 (English translation, The Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cookery, 1979).
  2. A teaching value chosen for the course: the right order of magnitude and shape, not a measurement of a particular food.