From the NRA Show: Food Rules in Design

Good restaurant design begins with a menu and a clear plan.

By David Farkas, Senior Editor -- Chain Leader, 5/20/2008 2:07:00 PM

Although restaurant designers may debate details, they agree on two things when it comes to initial planning: You must have a menu and a clear idea of the concept.

"Food is everything for me. It starts with the food," declared Rick Tramonto, culinary director of Chicago-based Cenitare Restaurants. Best known for his fine-dining restaurant, Tru, the award-winning chef has created five restaurants and consulted on several others.

He drew gasps from the packed room after mentioning the eight weeks he spent in Italy learning about cuisine before consulting on the menu for Osteria Via Stato, a Chicago restaurant operated by Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises. 

Tramonto was one of several consultants offering advice on launching new concepts during a Monday session at the National Restaurant Association Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show titled "Pre-Planning for Commercial Restaurants" moderated by Tucker W. "Bill" Main of Bill Main & Associates, Chico, Calif. 

Menus First

Operators ignore menus at their peril. Karen Malody of Seattle-based Culinary Options described a client who insisted he didn't need one before building out the kitchen.

"He puts up a very expensive 16-foot hood and then decides to do a pizzeria, only he had already miscalculated. He ended up putting the dough boxes underneath the hood," she recalled. "That could have been avoided if he had a menu first."

Edwin Norman of MVP Service Group, in Dubuque, Iowa, remembered a client ordering him to design a "general-purpose kitchen." Norman immediately insisted the client sign a waiver absolving the designer from fault or blame should more equipment or space be needed.

"We really need to understand the size of the kitchen [before beginning]," stressed architect Craig Pierson, senior project manager for HOK Sustainable Design in Chicago.

Designers can only figure that out by collaborating with the client. "My role is to help you put the concept into three-dimensional form," Pierson added.

Malody insists clients brainstorm with her for a day before beginning design work. "The clearer you are, the more you start to build your brand," she advised.

Keep it Small

Main, who described menu development as a "special passion," asked the panel how big a kitchen should be.

"As large as possible," quipped Tramonto, drawing a laugh from the audience. He wasn't exactly kidding. Tru's kitchen, he added, is half of the 8,000-square-foot restaurant.

The designers advised using, where possible, multifunctional equipment to keep kitchen size to a minimum. Yet Norman warned that a current trend, "sustainability," is now making kitchen designers take into account the use of fresh produce, which could mean adding more prep tables and thus increasing the back of the house.

"A year ago, this wasn't an issue," he said.

Norman recalled a client who wanted a large kitchen to handle prepping organic, local produce. The client, however, learned that some organic produce came trimmed and bagged. "So they won't need as large of a kitchen as he thought," Norman explained.