Interview with Chef Martin Laprise

For those of you who are thinking of opening and running your own restaurant some day will enjoy this bit of advice from Chef Martin Laprise, author of My Daughter Wants to Be A Chef.

Chef Laprise is one of those chefs who has seen it all. He has been employed in 24 of the 39 venues a professional chef can expect to work as described in his book. It is a great read if you or your child is thinking of attending culinary arts school.

Martin, now a professional caterer and personal cooking instructor in Canada participated in my Novice2Pro chef interview that can be seen at Interview with Chef Martin Laprise. This is another great interview for prospective young chefs thinking of cooking school.

At the end of my interview with Chef Martin, I asked him if he had any comments or advice related to managing a restaurant and here is his informative reply.

If you are going to have a restaurant one day, do your homework first. Here’s some advice I passed on to a friend of mine last month about running a successful restaurant.

1. Train and coach your staff well so when you its your day off they still perform accordingly. NO RESTAURATOR can do it alone.
2. Although this is your own unique concept, as soon as you open your restaurant, create your business as if someone else would take over one day. Think like a franchise.  That way when you want to slowdown and have a life with your child, you have a system and rules for everything. OR if you want to sell the business and travel the world, it’s easier once you have system in place. Think TURN KEY.
3. Empower all your employees to make decisions and not rely on you every times. Do not discourage them if they screw up, try to explain to them the best you can.
4. Reward your cooks by letting them create a special of the day and/or create an item for the new menu. Everyone likes to be part of things. A cook who feels part of something will stay longer. Ask for their opinions once in while so they will feel important and happy to work for you.
5. The schedule is the BEST tool you have in the kitchen or in the front. It’s a great reward to give a flexible schedule to your staff so that they can have a life or a hubby. Employees are there to help you realize your goal. Figure out what is best for everyone.  4 days a week for 10 hours for someone may not be suitable for someone else. Talk to everyone and make the schedule that best fits everyone’s needs. Example; young cooks like to party, where old cook like to be with their spouse on special occasions. ADJUST!
6. You are now a restaurant owner, wow, BUT don’t forget to think about when you were an employee and how it made you feel when the boss did not listen to any of your advices. Listen to your staff; NO REALLY listen to all of your staff, including dishwashers. They see things that you don’t. You only have two hands and two eyes! Create a system and environment that promote opinion sharing. Like a meal between lunch and dinner service with all the staff so everyone can talk about ideas and how to improve. This will create a great TEAM environment and cost very little long term. 
7.  The front of the house servers will benefit from having educational wine tasting once in while and enjoy the experience AND stay longer.
8. Don’t make one person work 60 hours a week when you can hire one and half workers instead. I know that the labor market is toughf, but it can be done. People that are over worked don’t perform well and may cost you some future clients. You ultimately control who works and how much! Even if someone wants to work overtime, don’t do it. For cost and for the employee.
9. Follow up is the most important action in any business. Example; when you say to an employee I will talk to you tomorrow, talk about it the very next day. When you say we will talk about a raise in two months, don’t avoid it. Make sure to have a talk two months to the day even if it is to say I can’t talk right now for X or Y reasons
10. If you give direction to any employees, you absolutely need to follow up to see if it was done right or done at all. If an employee who knows that you don’t follow up is more likely to screw up.
11. Customer service is extremely important. If you know that a table has waited a bit too long, send a glass of something to the table. A few dollars is much cheaper than a bad review from a client. Find a drink or food that is your signature to offer when things get busy. 
12.  All recipes, food or drink, should be written down and standard every time. 
13.  Since you are in the middle of wine country, if I were you, I would do wine tasting once a month. Something like the second Wednesday of each month. Stick with it and one day it will be packed. Have wine maker as guest! 
14. Press releases are simple. Tell your story about how you got there and you should get free press. Don’t ever sell your restaurant, sell you journey to media.
15. Press releases are very powerful! Wait until you are ready to handle lots of people. Make sure to send it to all media nationwide, not just local media.
16. Don’t cut down on quality ever and dessert is extremely important, as this is the last thing the client sees before the bad news/the bill.
17. No matter how much I like to cook duck, if the local market does not want to eat duck I have to accept that I will cook something else to make a living.
18. Hire people for who they are, not what they know. You can teach someone to be a better cook or server, BUT you can’t teach someone to be a better well adjusted human being. Choose people for their personality and teach them what you want.
19. Reward your employees for doing a good job.
20. Support your small community by giving out dinners to charity, you will get free press for it and feel good too.
21. An employee will never have the same commitment as you, period… This is your life, and it’s only a job for your best employee. Eventually, to make someone assistant manager is a smart move that will allow you to have a life of your own. 

If you are interested in reading more about running your own restaurant, I have found 3 ebooks on the subject that might be helpful. I have not read these ebooks yet because I am not thinking of opening my own restaurant but they might be something to check out if you are.

Top Secrets to Successful Restaurant Operations

Restaurant Management Toolkit 

How to Improve Dining Room Service 

and then there is this Restaurant News Service you can subscribe to called Restaurant News        

Black Tip Shark That Looked Great But Tasted Lousy

The other day I purchased what I thought were gorgeous looking shark filets for grilling. They were on sale at a ridiculously good price, which should have been my first clue something may not be right, but I have purchased a lot of fish on sale before with no problems.

I’ve been told by fishmongers I trust that supermarket chains sometimes buy too much of one item and then have to put it on sale to move it. Other times they put an item on sale so they can advertise it in the paper to get people in the store or so they can make one of those annoying announcements over the speakers while you are in the store.

This is why it is so important to find a fish store or supermarket you like and get to know the person running each department. Build a relationship with your fishmonger or butcher and they will typically steer you in the right direction, making sure you get quality product and the best sales. In this case I didn’t follow my own advice. I purchased the fish at a supermarket chain whose fish department doesn’t usually “wow” me, from a person behind the counter I did not know.

They told me the filets were black tip shark, great for grilling and tasted like swordfish that was selling at a significantly higher price. The filets looked great as you can see in the above photo and when I brought them home, they smelled fine.

Grilling and Tasting

I seasoned them with a little olive oil, salt & pepper and threw them on my gas grill being careful not to overcook them. We like our fish medium, especially if we are serving it to the kids.

When I made my first cut into the fish for that first bite, I knew something wasn’t right. The fish did not flake apart like I expected. When I took that first bite, the meat was very tough, tasted mealy and was almost inedible. When I say inedible, I don’t mean the fish was turned but chewy….not at all what I expected.

I thought maybe I didn’t cook it right or was I suppose to marinate it for a few hours so I emailed my friend Chef Alan Bickel with my own Ask A Chef Question.

I wrote, “Chef, what did I do wrong?  Is it my cooking technique or the fish? And if it was the fish, what was wrong with it? It looked great at the market.”

Here is what Chef Alan replied back to me:

“I have experienced what I think you’re referring to, although it has always been with swordfish in my case. It is almost a ‘grainy’ texture in the mouth, almost as if you were trying to chew finely ground up sandpaper?

In addition, I find the surface of the steaks have almost a sandy feel and not as firm as normal for a dense fish of that kind. As far as flavor profile goes, in a case like this there’s a very bland, depthless feel to it, instead of a full characteristic flavor.

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How to Make Perfect Sugar Cookies

I received an email from Kathy about preparing the “perfect” sugar cookie. She told me she made two batches of sugar cookie dough using the same recipe and one batch turned out perfect while the other “was puffy and lost shape.”

Kathy wanted to know why this happened so I contacted my friend Chef Jennifer Field, a graduate from the Orlando Culinary Academy, for some help since I’m not much of a baker. Jennifer had a bunch of questions that were answered in Kathy’s next email. Here is what she said,

“The batches were made and cooked on different days. The second batch was refrigerated for a couple days (at least). The recipe was the same, however, I may have beat my shortening, sugar and egg mixture longer the second time. Temp the same.”

Kathy’s Definition of the Perfect Sugar Cookie

“My definition of a perfect sugar cookie is one that is light and a little crisp with the buttery icing softening it just slightly. I’m not into a fluffy cakey sugar cookie. I definitely want one that will hold the shape and design of my cutter. I want to make snowflake shaped cookies at Christmas and my cutter has little cut outs you can add for more detail.

This is the recipe I used:
 
1 cup sugar
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 cup butter
2 eggs
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 cup flour
 
I’m not sure exactly if my mixing was different either time usually I mix in this order: sugar and fats together till creamy, add eggs till fluffy, add dry ingredients that have been combined beforehand, and end with vanilla.
Bake at 325 degrees in a convection oven.
 
I’m anxious to hear from you and what your suggestions will be for my success.
Thanks again – Kathy”

Chef Jennifer Field’s Recommendations

With these facts in hand, Chef Jennifer was able to point out why the second batch did not turn out “perfect” plus offer some changes to Kathy’s recipe for future cookies.  Here is what she said,

“What immediately jumps out at me is the refrigeration time for the second batch of cookies.  I see that your leavener was baking soda.  Baking soda in a baked good only has one chemical reaction:  it fizzes and bubbles when it gets wet.This, of course, happened when you first mixed your ingredients together.  Since you baked your first batch immediately, the soda did its job correctly. 

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