What is food plating?

Food plating is a simple  concept portrayed in a much more difficult way, it is the art of layering food to create a more aesthetically pleasing view . The same as you would style your hair a specific way or your clothes a specific way to cater to specific audiences. Food is styled and arranged to please the eye and add value to the dining experience, and provides room for a higher mark-up on your food.

You will mostly see food styling or food plating in high-end restaurants.

Here are the basic tools you need for food plating.

1.Piping bag

This is used mostly for food that you can semi control the shape of such as mashed potatos, deserts or very thick sauces

2. Squeeze bottles

These are used for sauces or purees that are too runny for a piping bag and require more precision

3. Precision tongs

Also for hygenic reasons, these are used to handle the food and garnishes, to place everything in a specific way.

4. Brush

Brushes are used maonly for glazes and sauces to splatter them in a specific way.

5.Saucier Spoon

A specific spoon with a pointed, dipped end to drizzle on glazes.

Now we know what to use, let's run through 3 basic plating techniques.

A simple yet affective way to plate your food,seperate the plate into 1/2 by protein and 1/4 each of starch and vegetables.

-Pipe your starch, in this case mashed potatoes to the left

-Layer the vegetables on the right

- The main focus is your protein so place it at the bottom nearest to the person in front of the plate. Make sure that your garnish is on top of the steak (or protein source) to really make it a focal point

-Finish off with a glaze drizzled on top, but be careful not to cover the garnish too much.

Free form style is mostly when the food is already cut into bite size pieces and laid out across the plate in no particular style but evenly distributed to create a sense of "one"

-Pipe the mashed potatoes unevenly accross the plate

-Layer with the fillet and carrots

-Adding another element of contrast, we have pea puree and beans for a pop of color as well

-Finish with a glaze and garnish,making sure that the garnish is evenly spread across the plate.

Landscape style is the most commonly used style as it has the most simple concept.

-The puree is put down first as a base

-The main ingredients are stacked against each other to create a "tower"

-Garnish is placed center point

-Glaze is drizzled around the "tower"

And thats it! The basics to food plating

Heres a couple of creations using plates from our ceramic collection! 

You can check out our ceramic collection at our online store! We can also do custom orders for different sizes!

Pictures from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2tuI8uyzA8