A 16-year partner of restaurateur Danny Meyer’s company, Union Square Hospitality Group, Richard Coraine is an avid menu collector, with signed menus from some of France, Italy and America’s most prestigious restaurants, including a one-of-kind set of menus from the Kennedy White House, where his uncle, Henry Hirschy, served as the President Kennedy’s major domo, helping to coordinate a glittering series of state dinners, receptions and festivities during the Camelot years. A veteran of Wolfgang Puck’s Spago, in both San Francisco and Los Angeles, Richard recently sat down with The Daily Beast’s David Lincoln Ross at the group’s Roman–inspired trattoria, Maialino, on Gramercy Park in Manhattan, to divulge the secret ingredients of what makes a great menu, choosing specific menus from Taschen’s Menu Design in America - 1850-1985 to illustrate his insights.
David Lincoln Ross: What is the essence of a menu?
Richard Coraine: A menu offers reflects the essence of the chef; it’s the first glimpse into the value you’ll be hoping to experience at the restaurant.
DLR: What are the key ingredients to a successful menu?
RC: It has to be user-friendly, it must stimulate the appetite, where the wording, prices and overall organization is clear; it can’t strain the eyes, in other words, do not make me work to enjoy myself.
DLR: What else does a menu communicate to prospective client?
RC: A menu is an extremely powerful marketing tool. What a waiter presents to a diner on being seated has a 100 percent success rate if viewed in terms of direct marketing.
DLR: What about the role of graphics and the principles of presenting the full complement of an establishment’s offerings—its soup-to-nuts, so to speak?
RC: Well, just look at for example, the classic menu of New York’s Four Seasons, it gives you a clear road map – see page 351 in the book – it winds its way down the page, simply, but elegantly.
DLR: What are the latest trends in menu presentation you’re seeing today?
RC: Diners are more sophisticated, better traveled and incredibly wired, so they are able to do much more research on their own via the internet, smart phones and social media. So today you’re seeing restaurants stepping up their efforts to creatively present their menus online as never before. On a business trip or vacations, diners increasingly love to do their own sleuthing rather than rely on guides, concierge services or the taxi driver who takes them into the city from the airport. If our customer who has done their homework online and made a reservation with us, then I am honored to serve them.
