I went to LA for Food Styling Classes some time ago, a class designed to make food look good for the camera. This time I went to Professional Culinary Institute (PCI) for Plate Presentation Class which is to learn how restaurant Chefs make food look good for us before we eat it. We eat with our eyes first, so not only does food need to taste good, but also needs to look good so we would want to eat it. When we cook at home we can also make every dish we make look good with some thoughtful planning.
On the day of class, if you arrive early, you can enjoy a pastry with juice or coffee in the waiting room. You will receive a booklet that contains all the recipes of the dishes we are making/plating, including all sauces with plating principles. The instructor was Chef Jeremy MacVeigh and the class starts with his lecture of plating principles in the demo kitchen.
Basically, most restaurants use white plates because it helps to bring out color in food. You could use dark or black plates but you need to be very careful with the food because food color would be harder to show on the dark color plates but it does show a different feeling and style.
We also need to remember hot food uses warm plates, cold food uses cold plates so the food would keep looking its best for a little bit longer (until you eat it). When plating, you want to consider the Colors, Textures, Shape, Height, Plate Coverage, and Cleanliness.
The dish would look better if you have different color of food in one dish so you want to think ahead when planning the meals. We also want to have different textures and shapes in food to make it interesting to the eye. For example, we had the Ahi Tuna as appetizer. The Ahi Tuna is red, triangular, and soft which go with the fried wonton that is brown, rectangular, and hard and then finish with wasabi dressing which is green, soft and can be any shape.
When plating, you want to stack up the food to create the height. So we used the fried wonton as a bed and put the Ahi Tuna on top of that and then garnish with green chive, green onion and dressing. You don’t want to put too much food in one plate because leaving some white space would be better. Remember to wipe the plate clean before serving.
The menu for the day:
1. Ahi Tuna with fried wonton skin finish with Soy Lime Vinaigrette and Wasabi Aioli
2. Scallop with pea finish with Red Pepper Coulis
3. Seared Airline Chicken on top of Polenta with Porcini Supreme Sauce and asparagus
4. Grill Steak on top of Potato Gratin with English Pea Puree and Baby Carrots, finish with Bordelaise sauce
5. Tiramisu
6. Fruit Platter
We watched Chef Jeremy make and plate every dishe (all prep work have already done ahead of time). He explained the important things that we need to remember or pay attention to for every dish, and then we tasted the food. We all moved to the commercial kitchen next door when he finishes all six dishes.
In the big learning kitchen, there are three stainless steel prep station on each side of the room with a small fridge underneath and cutting board, knifes, white plates on the table. Each fridge contains ingredients for making each dish so everyone can pick a station to start, when you are done, go to the next station to make another dish until you are all done.
Honestly, I already feel full after watching Chef Jeremy’s demonstration so I only ate the tuna, the scallop and half of the steak and half of the chicken. I packed the leftover steak and the chicken home but didn’t feel like making the Tiramisu and the fruit (I should have made them and then taken them home instead).
It’s rare to find a plating class for general public so I was happy when I found this class. Although I didn’t learn much on plating for this class (because I already know some of them), I did learn a lot on cooking part. The quality of the teacher and the food are very good which makes sense to me now why the tuition is more in PCI than in Sur La Table.
I realized my plating have a lot of influence from photography. In photography we try not to put the subject on the center of the frame and that is what I did with my plating, nothing on the center even thought Chef Jeremy put it on the center. Interesting!
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