曾經長時間的品嚐菜單使附近的餐廳漂浮

伍德賽德（Woodside）的Casa del廚師Bistro廚師和老板Alfonso Zhicay伸出雙手，將他的雙手扔掉，廢除他的La點菜菜單，並在一月份首次品嚐菜單。由於Omicron變體的差異，客戶的交通昂貴，Covid案件急劇增加，Zhicay發現自己拋出了昂貴的，未售出的扇貝，同時凝視了11月和12月的銷售量下降了90％。“我們每天晚上都在虧錢，” Zhicay說。

並非每個餐館老板在決定扔掉點菜菜單之前都麵臨著像Zhicay這樣的封閉邊緣，但是許多人卻痛苦地消除了一係列影響其晚餐服務和底線的變量。諸如下東區意大利餐廳Forsythia，Prospect Heights中的Olmsted和Woodside的Casa Del Chef Bistro等鄰裏景點現在正在尋找一種浮雕品嚐和固定菜單的措施，這種菜單通常與昂貴的美食餐點相關。Some owners say that while the change hasn’t necessarily boosted sales, there are other upsides: They’ve been able to cut down on food waste, better handle staffing shortages, and find more space for creativity in their day-to-day work.

At hip pasta spot Forsythia, owner Jacob Siwak allows diners to choose a handful of menu options for each course — “I don’t want to serve someone something that they don’t like,” Siwak says — but the kitchen can better prepare for unpredictable demands and cut down on food waste with a prix fixe menu. In the former a la carte format, the 45-seat restaurant would regularly see a dish spike in popularity one night only to plummet the next, after the team had already spent time prepping extra orders in anticipation of another sell-out night. The prix fixe menu decreased the need for that guesswork and allows the team to prepare more efficiently for each night. “We have more time to prepare for new dishes instead of working on the ones we already have,” Siwak says.

瑪德琳·馬克/福賽亞

While Forsythia still employs the same amount of 14 to 15 people, Siwak says that the restaurant is better able to handle last-minute staffing shortages with the prix fixe menus because the kitchen work has stabilized, and servers don’t have to spend as much time walking diners through the menu. At Casa del Chef Bistro, Zhicay can now run the restaurant with four employees instead of six on busier weekend nights.

Zhicay還發現，過渡到品嚐菜單為他的作品提供了更多的創造力。CASA DEL CHEF BISTRO的當前菜單每周更改，具體取決於Zhicay在農貿市場和餐廳的供應商中發現的內容，並且最多有六道菜，他有更多的時間來微調每個盤子。蘇吉爾·林（Soogil Lim）是東村Soogil背後的廚師兼所有者，也看到了類似的好處。員工通過較小的菜單更快地掌握技能，他能夠像鵝肝和無花果冰淇淋一樣磨練菜肴甜點配上達爾戈納糖果。林在一封電子郵件中說：“我可以沉浸並挑戰自己為每種菜單更改這些菜肴，這使我能夠成長。”

由於定型價格和食品選擇，許多人準備了品嚐菜單，以激發食客的強烈反對。Forsythia’s Siwak purposefully designed the restaurant’s prix fixe menu with two prices — a $75 five-course option in the dining room and a $40 three-course option at the bar — to cater to the two main types of diners at his restaurant: younger diners who swing by for a drink and a bite as one of several stops of their night, and older customers who treat dinner at the restaurant as their main event of the evening, he says. The restaurant’s $40 menu has been key to heading off complaints from those who would pass on the pricier dining room option.

有些客戶不介意花更多的錢。Soogil在2020年7月，當時該市的餐館正在戶外用餐時，Soogil轉向了品嚐菜單。He started out with a sub-$100 tasting menu — it has since increased to $115 for six courses due to rising costs — and anticipated some blowback due to the hike, but was surprised to find customers’ receptions were “completely opposite,” Lim says. According to Zhicay, Casa del Chef Bistro’s $69, six-course tasting menu has proven to be more popular than the abbreviated $49 three-course menu.

盡管如此，在決定在晚餐上花費多少時，食客在這些可靠的鄰裏景點的選擇較少。在Olmsted，Eater評論家Ryan Sutton在有利的評論在餐廳的新品嚐菜單中，晚餐可以在考慮食物，飲料，稅收和小費後輕鬆跑150美元。

品嚐菜單帶來了足夠的積極變化，以至於一些餐廳（例如Casa del Chef Bistro和Soogil）發誓要再也沒有回到點菜環境。他說，與去年年底相比，Zhicay的銷售額增加了60％。根據林（Lim）的說法，Soogil的品嚐菜單銷量逐漸增加，以至於餐廳現在占2019年收入的90％。

其他人仍在測試水域。Baxtrom有陳述在接下來的冬季緩慢的幾個月中，Olmsted的轉換是臨時的轉換。Siwak說，Forsythia仍在衡量反應，但他對客戶和員工的最初反應感到滿意。

Siwak說：“我希望的是更加一致性。”“不那麼高的峰值，也不那麼低。”