Kitchen Parlance, Part One
David Klemt
Partner, KRG Hospitality Inc. | Bar, Beverage and Guest Experience Coach | IHI 2024 Global Top 100 Social Media Influencers in Hospitality | Host of Bar Hacks, IHI 2024 Global Top 40 Hospitality Podcasts
Entering a professional kitchen might seem like a whole different realm with it’s own governing rules. and certainly it’s very own language.
“Clopen?” “All day?” “Behind?” “Covers?” “Deuce,” “dying on the pass”… If these terms sound foreign and made up to you, you’re not alone!
A busy kitchen can be a hot, intense, and stressful environment. Having a full-on conversation takes up valuable time when minutes and even seconds are the difference between a perfectly cooked plate of food and trash.
When actions need to be conveyed quickly and efficiently between two parties or a full team in a loud and fast-paced environment, slang develops out of necessity. Kitchens are no different, with their use of a creative and interesting lexicon.
New owners and operators opening their own concept may find many words and phrases they hear from the kitchen and servers strange at first. This is particularly true of owners and operators who may have little to no back-of-house or serving experience.
To lend a hand to hopeful operators or those opening their doors for the first time, let’s take a look at some of the more popular kitchen terms.
Operational & Equipment Terms
First, let’s take a look at the structural element of a restaurant and how they’re referred to.
Floor
The dining room (or whatever is deemed as guest seating in your establishment) is referred to as “the floor.” When someone asks, “who is on the floor tonight?”, they’re referring to the staff—usually servers—working the floor. Managers will walk the floor to check on guests and aid in service.
Note: The bar area, although it may have counter seating and its own tables, is referred to separately from the floor.
Low Boy
An under-counter refrigerator is called a “low boy” for its below-the-waist positioning, requiring cooks to bend down low to gather ingredients. This can include freezers as well. There are a variety of door configurations, including swinging, and drawer-style. Some even have salad tops where ingredients are kept in the top, under a lid.
Walk-In
A (very) large fridge or freezer, often constructed on site. It has a big swinging door that can be opened from both sides for safety reasons. The majority of raw ingredients—plus some prep and leftovers—are stored here. If you’re wondering where the word comes from, the clue is in the name: it’s so large, you can walk into it.
The walk-in is also notorious for being where restaurant staff go to scream some stress away, as the excellent insulation creates a nice sound barrier from guests.
Mise
The word “mise,” pronounced “meez,” is a slang term for “mise en place.” Mise en place is the French term for “having everything in its place” prior to service. Cooks use “mise” to refer to their own specific set of prepared ingredients, whether in terms of having it ready or not, or even worse, missing.
On the Line
The line, and the term “on the line,” refers to the area in the kitchen where the cooking equipment is located. Of course, this where chefs do most of the cooking during service. A typical line includes a walkway where the cooks work, and a flat table space—usually at the “window” or “pass” (see below)—where they plate, on the opposite side. Not surprisingly, that opposite side is referred to as the “plating area.”
If a concept requires it, there are separate “hot” lines where the hot cooking is done, and “cold” lines, where dishes that don’t require cooking are prepared. Deep fryers, ovens, and ranges are located in the former, and salad stations are located in the latter area. In classic French terms, the garde manger cook usually prepares most dishes on a cold line.
Pass / Window
The pass or window is the area opposite the cooking line where completed orders are placed for server pick-up. Think of passing dishes from the kitchen and you’ll understand this term immediately. Sometimes it will be referred to as a “window” in restaurants that have actual windows into the kitchen line from which food is passed to servers. The pass area is typically where the heat lamps are located, meant to keep dishes warm during a busy service.
The Rail / Board
The term “rail” or “board” refers to a strip of metal mounted to the food window that holds the food tickets (orders) from the kitchen printer in place. This keeps the flow organized and is normally overseen by the chef or line supervisor.
“Calling the board” means the person in charge reads out tickets as they come in, and directs cooking traffic to the other line cooks. Doing so helps to avoid disagreements and chaos in the kitchen. This position is reserved for the highest-ranking or most-talented cook, as it requires excellent cooking and communication skills. “Clear the board or rail” means completing all orders that have come in for the time being.
Chit / Ticket
When a server enters an order into the POS system, a chit or ticket, or even “dupe” (meaning “duplicate,” from the fact that some systems use three-color paper that prints a kitchen copy, a server copy, and an expo, bar, cold line, or pasty section copy), is printed to the kitchen. That ticket is then read aloud to the cooks before being placed in queue on the rail or board. When the food on the order is complete, the copy is marked in some fashion (stamp, marker, pen) and placed under the plate in the window. The server then picks up the food and the chit is “stabbed” on to a spike.
Don’t let spiked tickets fall out of the rail or all hell can break loose and derail a service!
Two-Top / Three-Top
Dining room tables are referred to as “tops” and are identified by how many guests they can accommodate (seats). A table with two chairs is a “two-top” or “deuce.” Tables with four or six chairs are “four-tops” and “six-tops,” respectively.
Covers
Each person who enters the restaurant is a cover: they “cover” one seat. The more covers, the busier a service will be, and vice versa. These numbers are used to project future numbers, staffing requirements, and inventory required. Covers are also a point of pride for kitchen staff. The more covers, the busier the service, and if you can navigate it with few mistakes, the adrenaline rush can directly convince yourself of your own talents.
Dead Plate
A dead plate is a dish of food that’s no longer worthy of the dining room. Sitting in the window too long, incorrect preparation, or even worse, being sent back by a guest results in a dead plate. Untouched dead plates are usually given to dish washing staff or porters; those sent back by guests are tossed in the bin.
Section
A section is how the floor is divided amongst serving staff. Typically, the more talented or senior staff get a bigger section. Designating sections, with all their tables in one close area, helps servers move efficiently during busy periods and keep close tabs on guests. Managers and floor captains will oversee a few or all sections and offer help to the individual servers during busy times or for large parties.
Server Alley
The front-of-house equivalent of the kitchen hot line. This is where everything servers need to do their jobs is located. Extra napkins, spare side plates, cutlery rolls, and cleaning supplies for clearing tables can all be found here. There are usually a few POS terminals here for entering orders.
For many more kitchen terms, please visit KRGHospitality.com.
Tales Reveals Top 4 2023 Spirited Awards Finalists
We’re one month away from the 17th annual Spirited Awards ceremony and the top four nominees in each category have been revealed.
Over the course of the past few months, the Tales of the Cocktail Foundation have been hard at work to narrow the field. They first announced this year’s honorees. Not long ago, they announced the top ten nominees.
Now, we know the top four nominees in the running for each of the Spirited Awards. You can check them out below, with each award organized into one of four main categories: US, International, Global, and Writing & Media.
Congrats to the finalists! We’ll know the winners in just a month.
Cheers!
US Categories
US Bartender of the Year presented by Pernod Ricard USA
Best US Bar Mentor presented BarSmarts
Best US Brand Ambassador presented Libbey
领英推荐
Best US Bar Team presented by William Grant & Sons
Best US Cocktail Bar presented by Absolut Vodka
Best US Hotel Bar presented by Grey Goose
Best US Restaurant Bar presented by Amaro Montenegro and Select Aperitivo
Best New US Cocktail Bar presented by Diageo Bar Academy
For the International, Global, and Writing & Media finalists, please visit KRGHospitality.com.
AI Guesses 2023 Spirited Award Winners
Ahead of the 17th annual Spirited Awards ceremony I asked a chatbot called Chat AI to guess the winner in each award category.
Before we get into the chatbot’s guesses, this is solely for entertainment. I’m not a programmer or engineer. I don’t pretend to know how to work with and get the most out of artificial intelligence. I thought this would be a bit of good fun.
In fact, I asked a very simple question, followed by the awards and nominees of each main category: “Can you guess the winner of each category below?”
That’s it—very simple. But, hey, if any of the guesses turn out to be accurate, that’s pretty cool. It will mean that Canada, New York, San Francisco, and Singapore are going to do well this year.
Another note: I couldn’t use ChatGPT, Bing AI, or Google Bard for this little project. It took some doing to find a chatbot that would tackle making award predictions.
Ultimately, it was AI Chat from DeepAI that made the guesses. It did so quickly and without hesitation.
Now, I can’t say that I know what criteria DeepAI AI Chat used to make its guesses. I have no idea if it crawled reviews and articles in a split second. Nor can I say that Chat AI did anything but apply random selection generation (that sounded techy, didn’t it?).
Again, this is really just for fun, so I’m not overly bothered by AI Chat’s methodology. The platform is not, to the best of my knowledge, affiliated in any way with Tales of the Cocktail or their judges. In fact, I didn’t even mention Tales of the Cocktail Foundation or the Spirited Awards when “conversing” with Chat AI.
US Categories
US Bartender of the Year presented by Pernod Ricard USA
Masahiro Urushido, Katana Kitten (New York, New York)
Best US Bar Mentor presented BarSmarts
Nectaly Mendoza
Best US Brand Ambassador presented Libbey
Vance Henderson (Hendrick’s Gin)
Best US Bar Team presented by William Grant & Sons
Pacific Cocktail Haven (San Francisco, California)
Best US Cocktail Bar presented by Absolut Vodka
Service Bar (Washington, DC)
Best US Hotel Bar presented by Grey Goose
Dear Irving on Hudson at the Aliz Hotel (New York, New York)
Best US Restaurant Bar presented by Amaro Montenegro and Select Aperitivo
Kumiko (Chicago, IL)
Best New US Cocktail Bar presented by Diageo Bar Academy
Pacific Standard at the KEX Portland (Portland, Oregon)
For AI Chat's International, Global, and Writing & Media category predictions, please visit KRGHospitality.com.
2023 World’s 50 Best Restaurants: 51 to 100
Last week we checked out the top 50 restaurants around the world, and today we’re taking a look at those ranked 51 to 100.
Narrowing down the 50 best restaurants in the world is a harrowing task. So it makes sense that the World’s 50 Best Restaurants expanded the list to the best 100. Even that, however, must be daunting.
France performed particularly on the 100 to 51 list this year, clinching six spots. Four of those, unsurprisingly, are located in Paris.
The US, Bangkok, and Spain each have four restaurants on the list. For the US, two restaurants make the rankings in both California and New York.
Operators in Japan earn three spots, with two restaurants in Tokyo and one in Osaka. London also achieves three places on this list.
A number of countries, regions, and cities have two restaurants on the 2023 100 to 51 list: Cape Town, Denmark, Hong Kong, Istanbul, and Mexico.
Again, like to 50 to 1, Canada and Australia don’t have restaurants ranked anywhere on the 51 through 100 list.
Last Year’s 100 to 51 List
A number of restaurants from the 2022 World’s Best Restaurants, 100 to 51 are also on this year’s list.
Flocons de Sel, located in Megève, France, likely made the greatest gains. In 2022, the restaurant was ranked number 99. This year, Flocons de Sel earned the number 80 spot.
A few restaurants made humble but notable steps in the right direction. As an example, New York’s Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare climbed from 63 to 61. And Ernst, located in Berlin, went from number 62 in 2022 to 55 this year.
Unfortunately, Sud 777 in Mexico City tumbled in 2023. Last year, the venue reached the number 52 spot. This year, however, it’s number 70. That said, it’s the number 70 restaurant in the world. Nothing to be ashamed of, and I won’t be surprised to see the Sud 777 team drive the restaurant back toward the 50s or better in 2024.
To review the 100 to 51 list from 2022, please click here.
Please visit KRGHospitality.com to see this year's 51 to 100 best restaurants.
Starting + Stabilizing + Scaling Bars, Restaurants, Hotels | Author | Speaker | Strategist
1 年This is only part one!? ??
Certified Life Coach at KRG Hospitality Inc.
1 年Super helpful glossary! ??