How do you test and refine new menu items before launching them?

Not all the menu items you have are winners. So time comes, mainly when changing seasons, when we refresh the menu with new items. Usually replacing items with low margin and low sales is the way. Introducing seasonality in the new dish is a must. You also want to use ingredients that are in season (means less expensive and multiple vendors to buy them from).

You can run prototype items as "specials"/features in your restaurant and gauge how they sell. You can also have servers poll guests as to what they liked or did not like. It is a good idea to plate new prototypes on different serviceware pieces and determine which piece shows the prototype best. You also want to ensure the the piece selected is easy to eat from (e.g., cut a piece of protein.

One of my favorite development methods is doing daily "Testers" before service starts. It gives you an opportunity to address QC, keep training ongoing with the waitstaff, and allows for you to ask both your sales team (FoH) and your manufacturing team (BoH) what they think about the product. This constant evaluation will reveal pain points from both sides that can help either guide future training or act as considerations during new menu item development.

We do initial testing with internal management teams and we include staff. You'll be surprised by some of the ideas and feedback we get. Next step is daily specials AND most important, getting feedback from guests. What they liked / disliked. We summarize and refine our final dish. We do final test as specials but also with regular guests that will know will give us an honest feedback and have a good palette.

It seam's to me, that what you have presented is too complicated, the process need's to be simple. You run a special it sell well, you run it again it sells well, you consider it. You follow the comments/opinions of the customer, your waitstaff and your culinary team. You also consider other aspects, availability, all costs, ease of preparation, prep time etc. And this info can all be tallied during the time the product was ran as a special.

My philosophy is, create simple dishes that are nice to look at and taste as they look. I don't suggest complicated to execute dishes (unless that is your niche) and a keeping a close eye to the line as soon as you roll that new menu. Staff will need help, both BOH and FOH, and management team should be there to guide, help, provide more info, get more feedback.