Culinary Core Principles and Why They Matter

I once accepted a contract position for the summer at a large resort in the mid-Atlantic region, and on my first day, a cook asked me, ‘So what’s your mission?”

There had been plenty of talk during the negotiations about what we hoped to achieve during my time there, but the cook’s question codified it for me in a way I hadn’t thought of before.

Of course, I had a mission, even if it was implied.

The question then became, "Shouldn’t it have been more than an implication?"

What was I working for?

Do you know what you’re working for?

Do you know what’s important to you, your customers, your associates, or your owner?

And if you do, doesn’t it make your operation more fluid and congruent to have a clear-cut mission, vision, and objective?

The focus of this article will be what I am coining ‘Culinary Core Principles’ but it’s impossible to talk about these without first considering an operation’s ‘Mission, which will create the container, boundaries, and framework within which our Culinary Core Principles will exist, in service to that mission.

The Mission

Every world-class organization or operation has taken the time, and the due diligence to discern what they’re in business for; what their ‘mission’ is, and crafted a concise statement to that effect.

The resulting statement becomes their working thesis and can be brought to bear in every decision they make about their customers and their business.

A simple way to put it would be that if you’re running a burger joint, and that is your focus, then you wouldn’t put a pasta dish on the menu.

Or would you?

Many operators, feeling the pressure of dwindling market share and their desire to be all things to all people, often make this mistake.

Let’s face it, if you’re going to try to be all things to all people, there will always be someone who is dissatisfied.

In the late 80s and early 90s, there were 4 or 5 major restaurant chains that, although they had different names, all had the same appetizer menus and many of the same core menu items.

There was no point of differentiation. Nor was there any compelling reason to go eat at any particular one because they all represented the same value proposition; food for the masses at the lowest possible price point with the highest possible margin for owners and shareholders.

It didn’t take an economist to predict what happened next; one went bankrupt, one went into receivership, and the others consolidated.

Where once there were five, there are now three, and more than one of them is on the operational ropes.

It’s not enough in this economy to be in business solely for the profit motive, although no organization can stay in business without it.

Great companies think about what they’re about first, and then back into how they can do it profitably.

Nor will it be enough to be in business for notoriety, fame, or exposure.

Great business leaders also know that in order to be successful personally, their life’s mission must be closely aligned with that of their organization.

A change in one or the other necessitates a move, if one is to be happy, and fulfilled in their work.

We’ll return to this concept a little later in the article.

If the mission is the sandbox in which you exist, then your Core Principles are the toys in the sandbox with which you play. The one reinforces the other, clarifying and fortifying the standards that come from living your principles.

Culinary Core Principles

If you Google “Culinary Core Principles,” you’ll get 46,000 results.

Cooking principles, principles of clean eating, core knowledge competencies, or principles of good cooking—many of these, while important, don’t actually speak to what we’ll cover in this article.

Whether you’re more comfortable calling them ‘values’ or ‘ideals’, what I’m suggesting is that given a strong enough mission statement, your core principles then dictate a certain value proposition, which then leads to operational standards and finally a code of conduct that can be measured, coached, and mentored.

While statements such as, ‘We Make Memories’ or ‘We Serve the Best Fried Chicken in the South’ are both admirable, they are hardly quantifiable because, in the end, their evaluation is subjective.

What we’re looking for are clear, unambiguous, and measurable objectives that we can then drive operational standards by. Think in terms of words that will help make it clear to anyone, customer or associate alike, what you and your operation are about; words like:

· Sustainable

· Innovative

· Traditional

· Slow Food

· Organic

· Seasonal

· Elegant

· Classic

· Community Focused

· Inclusive

· Plant-Based

· Philanthropic

· Cooperative

You might be thinking right now, "But isn’t this just a marketing technique?"

The answer is yes, if left only as a slogan.

Just recently, several restaurants in Tampa were called out because they claimed to be ‘farm to table’ only to find out that they were getting proteins as far away as Colorado, and while they were technically purchasing from a ‘farm’ and were serving food on a ‘table’, the consensus of the article was that the public had been duped.

The hot topic right now in marketing is shifting from marketing the "name" to marketing the message, and while these operators may be adhering to this new paradigm, if you can’t back up the message, sooner rather than later, you’ll also be called out.

Who needs that in their business or personal life?

Why Culinary Core Principles Matter

“Adam,” you might say, “I have enough to worry about in my operation, sometimes it’s all I can do to get sauté covered for service.

Why is any of this important?” Simply put, because:

1.) They become your point of operational differentiation, for both customers who are looking for a message that resonates with them and for your prospective crew members, who are more and more looking for work that is congruent with their own personal values.

2.) They become your focus, thereby making it very easy to make operational and menu decisions based on those principles.

3.) They become your mantra, keeping you on-point, on-mission, and on-message.

4.) They become your way of doing business with vendors, the community, customers, and crew.

5.) Considering a change?

The only question to then ask is, “Is this congruent with our Culinary Core Principles?”.

Yes? Awesome, full steam ahead. No? Toss out what would otherwise be a distraction.

The best part of this exercise is that you end up with a clearly defined, agreed-upon center; immutable, consistent, nonnegotiable, and measurable.

Center It

Once you have your center, your world revolves around it, instead of the other way around.

Danny Meyer, in his book ‘Setting the Table, describes his management approach as ‘The Salt Shaker Theory’.

“Your staff and guests are always moving your salt shaker off-center. That’s their job. It’s the job of life. It’s the law of entropy! Until you understand that, you’re going to get pissed off every time someone moves the salt shaker off center. It is not your job to get upset.”

He is talking about more than a mere saltshaker on a table; he’s talking about his core principles. He goes on to say that his managerial style has become “constant, gentle pressure; returning the saltshaker to the center each time life moves it.”

A powerful, yet simple and elegant metaphor to explain a way of being that has at its core, a carefully thought-out and conceived center.

Taking it Personally

If you’re still with me this far, then let me suggest something deeper. If you resonate with your company’s, organization's, or kitchen’s core culinary principles, then that means that you have personal core values as well.

How many of us actually look at our personal lives in such a manner? How many of us have actually taken the time to write out our life’s mission and its corresponding core values? It’s an exercise worth doing because there will be something to discover.

Maybe your family is the most important thing in your life, maybe it’s living off the grid or supporting energy-neutral enterprises. How do you, and with whom do you spend your money?

That’s usually a clear indication of what’s important to you. The next question would be, “How are you living those personal core values in your professional life?”

Maybe you don’t think it’s possible given everything that you’ve made yourself responsible for.

Maybe being unhappy and unfulfilled in your professional life is just a very well-practiced way of being.

Maybe there’s more that we can aspire to.

A Model for Us All

All of this can be distilled down to one shining example. I recently had the opportunity to interview Executive Chef Brandon Chrostowski, the driving force behind Edwin’s Restaurant in Cleveland, Ohio. If the name rings a bell, it’s because he was recently named one of CNN’s 2016 Heroes.

I came away from my time with Chef Brandon humbled and grateful. Edwin’s isn’t just a standout classical French restaurant; it’s also a not-for-profit Leadership Institute.

When Brandon was a young man, he had a run-in with the law. The judge that presided over his case, gave him the opportunity to, after spending some time in jail as recompense for his crime, enter into an apprenticeship at a local restaurant. That one judge, along with the mentor he found in the executive chef at the restaurant, changed the trajectory of his life forever.

He spent time earning his bones in other countries and cooking at some amazing restaurants in France. He could have easily forgotten his good fortune and gone on to culinary glory, but Brandon isn’t wired that way.

As early as 2004, he had a business plan for Edwin’s, with one clear mission—and one he made no apologies for: Edwin’s was going to be a place where paroled convicts could get training and work in a classic French restaurant. He believes that everyone deserves a second chance, and he would dedicate not only his professional life but his personal one as well.

He told me that he had made peace with the possibility that he probably wouldn’t have time for a wife, or a family; such was his commitment to that mission.

In the end, he met someone who held the same beliefs and commitment to the work he had set for himself.

When deciding where to put Edwin’s he consulted crime, incarnation, and recidivism rates for the entire United States, and at the time, Cleveland had some of the highest. For him, considering his mission and his core values, it was an easy decision to make.

He’s since built the restaurant into a highly regarded establishment in its own right, notwithstanding the reality that his crew turns over every 6 months when their culinary and leadership training is over.

There are over 60 restaurants nationwide on a waiting list for Edwin’s alumni, and they’re in the midst of an aggressive expansion of student and alumni housing, a butcher shop, and a bakery.

Brandon and his team have taken over what once was a blighted street corner in Cleveland and turned it into a campus of possibility.

All while turning a ‘profit’ that was reinvested in his vision.

His measurable results?

95% of applicants graduate, and of those that do, 0% re-offend—zero!

When asked why he chose a 501(c)(3) corporation for his enterprise, he said, “It’s because I want it to outlive me as a charitable organization.”

You may not have goals as lofty as Chef Brandon's, but here is a clear example of what it looks like to be committed to a vision and the core principles that anyone can embody.