Menu Development and Recipe Costing
Core Concepts
Menu development balances culinary identity, seasonality, labor capacity, equipment, and margin. Candidates must build standardized recipes with precise yields, portion sizes, and procedures, then cost them using edible-portion pricing and a target food-cost percentage. Understand menu engineering: classify items by popularity (sales mix) and profitability (contribution margin) into stars, plowhorses, puzzles, and dogs, and know the strategic action for each. Account for plate cost including garnish and accompaniment, and recognize that menu price derives from plate cost divided by target food-cost percentage.
Traps in Questions
Questions often present a recipe cost per batch and ask for plate cost, testing whether you divide by yield. Another trap: using as-purchased price when trim loss must be applied. Menu-engineering distractors mislabel high-popularity/low-margin items (plowhorses) as stars. Cross-utilization and menu-mix balance questions reward recognizing shared ingredients that reduce waste and inventory complexity.
Rule of Thumb
Plate cost ÷ target food-cost % = menu price. If plate cost is $4.20 and target food cost is 30%, price = $4.20 ÷ 0.30 = $14.00. Always verify the yield factor before trusting a per-portion figure.
Worked Example
A batch yields 24 portions and costs $58 in ingredients. Plate cost = $58 ÷ 24 = $2.42. At a 28% target food cost, price = $2.42 ÷ 0.28 ≈ $8.64; round to a menu-friendly $8.95 or $9.00 and recheck the resulting food-cost percentage.