Expert Shares Secrets to Menus Success
By Cathy Rose A. Garcia
Staff Reporter
The menu is probably one of the most important elements in determining a restaurant's success. If customers do not find anything that piques their interest, then the restaurant is in big trouble.
For Sun@Food, a company whose chain of restaurants include Spaghettia, Spaghettia Classico, Mad for Garlic, Tony Roma's and Via di Napoli, the importance of the menu cannot be emphasized enough.
Choi Hyun-jung, head of Sun@Food's research and development team, is responsible for creating the menus and dishes for its restaurants. In an interview with The Korea Times, she talked about how she develops the menus and ensures the quality of food at the restaurant chains.
``We have a certain theme for each restaurant, which makes it easier for us to make a menu. For example, Mad for Garlic is a garlic-themed Italian wine bistro. When I make a menu, I think of garlic and I check the dishes. If some aren't selling well, we develop new ones. We also include seasonal vegetables and seafood, plus adapt trends in food culture,'' she said.
The company's restaurants are mostly Italian-themed, which might make it hard for a casual diner to find subtle differences among them.
``Its okay to try the restaurants because you will have a different experience at each one. ... I try to give each restaurant's menu a little twist,'' Choi said.
Spaghettia, a brand that has been around for 10 years, offers dishes like Spaghetti Bolognese, spaghetti with seafood, and carbonara. Spaghettia Classico is an upgrade on the old brand, with trendier dishes such as Arrabbiata, gorgonzola risotto and pepper steak.
Via di Napoli, a Neapolitan pizzeria, serves hand-tossed pizza such as margherita and four cheese, while Mad for Garlic offers a wide array of dishes with garlic as a key ingredient.
The restaurants' menus are changed once a year, although new dishes are introduced as part of promotional campaigns and to test customer feedback.
However, many Korean customers don't like to experiment. ``When we put out a new item, people don't even try it. They know what they want to eat when they come. It's hard to change their minds,'' Choi noted.
Choi, who graduated with honors from The Culinary Institute of America in New York, finds inspiration for the menu from museums and movies to even designer fashion collections. ``When I see the fashion collections, I look at the colors and add the trendy colors in the dishes, like with vegetable color or presentation style, so it matches the season,'' she said.
Apart from Italian cuisine, Sun@Food has also introduced Szechuan cuisine at its restaurant Red Pepper Republic. ``Szechuan cuisine is very spicy and we use a lot of the Szechuan peppers. It's a new and challenging cuisine for Koreans, who are used to jajangmyeon and regular Chinese food,'' Choi said.
Bistro Seoul, a high-end Korean restaurant, will be opening in Samseong-dong next week. It will serve as a showcase for Korean cuisine, since the company plans on opening other braches abroad.
``We will present Korean dishes in a more Western-style, which means it will be easy to eat. Korean-style means there are a lot of side dishes, and people have a hard time grabbing the food. So we are focusing more on the main dishes, rather than the side dishes,'' Choi said.
But whatever the cuisine, Choi said Sun@Food's key to ensuring the success of its restaurants is simple: ``We are always serving good quality food with the best service.''