Gordon Ramsay's signature Beef Wellington was always going to have a 'beef' in it somewhere. And even McDonald's Big Mac can be classed as a signature that wrote the Big Ms indelibly into fast food history. A signature dish represents the intrinsic value and texture of a restaurant. A great one can get people talking in all the right ways. Quite literally 'word of mouth' can put your restaurant on the map.
This article won't be telling you how to cook or what to cook. You're the chef and only you know what works best for you. What we can do is acquaint you with some of the core values and variables to steer your culinary skills down the right path to a rip roaring new recipe.
Choose your course
A great signature dish doesn't have to be a main course – after all, one of the most famous of all is a salad. So what do you love cooking most? Soups, salads, entrées, main courses or desserts? Does a particular course offer your talents as a chef more scope to express yourself creatively? Are you a whizz with certain spices? Can you take carrots places carrots have never been? Most importantly, what do you get the most compliments for? Unsolicited praise is gold and could be the catalyst for your breakthrough dish.
Include roots in your core ingredients
A classic signature dish can be connected to you, your region or restaurant in some tangible way. It can evoke a little of your history and culture through its ingredients or flavours. So try to make it relevant and interesting. Diners can't eat your back story, but any rich texture you can add to layer mystique on your dish will only enhance its flavour and popularity.
Cook a book
And not just any book, a biography. Your signature dish should tell a story about you as a chef and your restaurant as an eatery. What are you known for? Seafood? Game? Sustainable local produce? Do diners associate you with regional dishes or are you recognised for more global fare? Are your cooking techniques unique in some way? Try to work out what defines you most and base your dish around it.
Keep your support characters in mind
While everything else on your menu may not even have minor roles in the story your dish tells, they are still on your menu. If your signature dish turns up looking all very spectacular, but equally spectacularly out of place, it may be like trying to sell sci fi to romance lovers.
When diners go to a restaurant, they have certain expectations. So if they expect Italian, don't try to dazzle them with a disorientating geographical deviation. Make it special, but make it fit. And don't be afraid of weird combinations. Finding two ingredients that should be supremely awful together, but aren't could be the central reason why your dish takes off.
Go for star quality
And yes, Michelin Star quality is the ultimate dream, but first you need to make your dish the star attraction at your restaurant. School waiting staff on how to up sell diners on your dish by telling its story and ideal accompaniments – wines and side dishes. Talk about your dish on social media and through press releases. Anything that gets your signature out there is great for business.
