Expert Tips for Maximizing Profits in Italian Menus
Pizza and pasta are still deft at controlling costs
No food has escaped higher prices in recent years – even the humblest ingredients central to Italian cuisine, such as flour, tomatoes and cheese. But that doesn’t mean menu stalwarts such as pizza and pasta have lost their margin-boosting charms. It just means outsmarting economic factors while reining in costs to prop up profitability.
Here’s a refresher – a playbook of tips from chefs who pay as much attention to what’s coming off the line as they do watching the bottom line.
TRY CROSS-UTILIZATION ON INGREDIENTS
Find an ingredient you love at a good price, and use it across the menu. For Chris Thompson, executive chef/owner of The National in Telluride, Colorado, that includes a “relatively expensive” feta that appears in a watermelon salad, a lamb shawarma Bolognese, a spiedini and more. Leftover whey finds a home in whipped feta, with larger crumbles of the cheese starring in salads and smaller pieces appearing in sauces and garnishes.
AIM FOR (ALMOST) ZERO FOOD WASTE
Italian chefs are masters at using every bit of each ingredient, keeping waste to a bare minimum. “Italian cuisine in general is a cuisine that was developed out of necessity, not out of luxury,” Thompson says. Carrot tops can become garnish or salad additions, and celery leaves can also brighten a plate. “One of my successes in a day is when our recycling is full and our trash is pretty scant,” he says. His kitchen also does lots of pickling to preserve local produce.
If You Serve It, Charge for It
And that means items like bread. Brian Cripps, executive chef of Milwaukee’s Tre Rivali, started charging for housemade bread earlier this year. Customers now choose to pay $5 for a large square of focaccia and some sauce, a product that had been delivered to each table with the cost rolled in. Cripps says there hasn’t been any pushback from diners. “That’s something we had to adjust to as well – with rising food costs, we pay for this stuff,” he says. “So rather than factoring the cost of bread into our dishes on the menu, we charge for it up front.”
Know Your Market
In the resort community of Telluride, diners will bear more price increases than they would in Milwaukee, Thompson and Cripps say. “You definitely have a ceiling on it,” Cripps notes. “I try to describe restaurants this way: We’re a want, not a need.”
Employ Tech to Your Advantage
Thompson has found success using an inventory management system powered by artificial intelligence. “I have a pretty good grasp of what I pay for things, but when you’re talking over 400 to 600 different items in a week, a 25% price increase can slip past you,” he says.
Balance Labor With Outsourcing
Depending on your operation, it may make sense to outsource some items rather than making them in-house. A big kitchen could churn out fresh pasta, while a smaller staff might buckle under the responsibility. And, if a dish isn’t consistent, you won’t win repeat business, says Ryan Connors, executive chef at Capriccio in Providence, Rhode Island. “It all comes down to the people,” Connors says. “I can teach anybody to make pasta. I can’t teach them to be fast at it.” But Cripps, who has 27 to 30 cooks on at all times, finds his restaurant saves money making pasta in-house because the kitchen can produce so much of it. Plus, pasta shapes can be created with certain sauces in mind, limiting the amount of sauce per plate because the noodles grab onto it so well, he says.
Portion Smartly
“Flour and eggs are like the stock market right now,” says Connors. It’s more important than ever to settle on portion sizes that work for your bottom line, starting with proper training of cooks and oversight of the line to ensure consistency. But Cripps also likes to test dishes with the whole staff, making sure they know the menu price for each dish. “They’ll be the ones who are brutally honest with you, saying, ‘You can’t charge that,’” he says. “Anybody who is in a position of leadership should listen.”
Have Some Workhorse Dishes
On a menu with six pastas at The National, two are vegetarian, two are meat and two are seafood, Thompson says. And the higher-margin vegetarian options sell well, he says. “I try to make vegetarian pastas for people that consider themselves carnivores. They don’t know that there’s meat missing from the dish.” Making use of whole-ingredient dishes like meatballs and ragu can balance out more expensive plates, Cripps says. “You get a ton of yield out of it, and it’s all ground meat.”
