Food Presentation and Plating Standards Checklist

Cross-check against the laminated build card: coupe for crudo, 10-inch matte for entrees, slate for the chef's tasting. Wrong vessel is the most common reason a refire gets called at the pass.

Use the digital scale on the pass — recipe cards list portion in ounces with a +/- 0.25 oz tolerance. Eyeballed portions are the single largest driver of food-cost variance month over month.

Starch base, then protein, then vegetable, then sauce, then garnish — unless the build card says otherwise. Reversing the order traps steam under the protein and softens the sear.

Squeeze bottle for dots, spoon-drag for swooshes, ladle pour for nappe coverage. Sauce never goes over the protein unless the card explicitly calls for it — guests should be able to see the sear.

Garnish comes from the labeled, dated quart on the garde manger reach-in. Anything past 48 hours from prep date gets dumped — wilted chervil on a $42 entree is worse than no garnish at all.

Expediter calls the ticket; the firing station repeats back. Capture whether the ticket carries an allergen flag — gluten, dairy, shellfish, tree nut, peanut, soy, egg, sesame are the FDA Big 9.

Allergen tickets plate on the purple-rimmed vessels stored separately on the pass shelf. New gloves, dedicated tongs, dedicated cutting board — no shared fryer oil for gluten-free or peanut-allergen tickets.

Photo card lives at the pass for every menu item. Hold the plate next to it for 2 seconds — height, color balance, sauce pattern, garnish placement.

Sous or expediter calls Pass, Refire, or Hold. Refire goes back to the firing station with the reason; Hold parks the plate under the heat lamp while the rest of the table catches up.

Walk the plate back to the firing station, name the issue, and re-fire on the next ticket cycle. Track the refire in the shift log so patterns surface in the weekly line meeting — repeat refires on one dish usually mean the spec card or the line cook needs a reset.