Originally Posted by
slawecki
Most better restaurants in usa and france use infra red heaters. a lot of the pre cooking is done hours earlier. the food is plated in stages, and held in an ir heater until all is ready.
at a tasting dinner, how you think 5 guys get all that food out for 50 people?
chefs can organize beautifully.
this does not work in italian or most oriental cuisine. the food is prepared from scratch, and ready NOW!!! risotto is going to take 30 min. most kitchens are not big enough to prepare 8 or 10 main courses to be ready at the same time.
I would agree w/most of this. A well run kitchen w/good chefs shouldn't have too much of a problem getting all the plates for a table to the runner in a short window of time... unless they've really fallen into the weeds. I would argue that the very best of the restaurants and chefs do not use IR heaters though.
And yes, much of the key is precooking/staging some of the dishes during the 3-5 o'clock hours so that they only have to be 'finished' as the orders come in.