Most chefs will tell you that creativity in the kitchen is how they
stay in business. Chad Clift certainly uses his creativity, developed
over years of preparing his own Japanese dishes as a child with his
father and as the head chef and founder of Futoji Aji, a restaurant in
Seattle. From a business standpoint, the way you have to keep customers
coming to your doors to eat is to freshen up the menu and offer them new
tastes and textures often. Trying new ways of pushing the boundaries of
a particular cuisine can be a great way to draw more guests and to keep
a chef’s artwork flowing. Art is nothing without creativity and
experimentation. Food preparation is no different.
However,
there is a fine line between using one’s creativity in the kitchen to
create new and exciting dishes within a traditional cuisine, as Chad
Clift knows. Pushing too hard on what traditional Japanese food is, for
example, won’t always create the most edible dishes. Customers will pay
to try new things, but not if they’re inedible. Clift, therefore has to
carefully choose which experiments are worth pursuing and which simply
won’t work. Combining random ingredients in a bowl isn’t a good way to
experiment with people’s taste buds.
Where does this quandary leave chefs like Chad Clift? They have businesses to run and they have to give their clienteles what they want, yet they also have to find new ways to refresh the menu and use their true skills to create bolder, better tastes. One way chefs balance these dueling needs is by employing a team of specialized, skilled assistants and associate chefs at their restaurants to help them make decisions and test out their ideas before they reach customers’ plates. More than simply having brains and sets of taste buds analyzing the same experimental dishes, this makes the entire process of building a menu and creating new dishes a team activity, employing the specific skills of several professionals all working on the same problem. The head chef isn’t alone in his or her work and critical decision-making processes.
Chad Clift and his team work hard at Futoji Aji to create the best, boldest Japanese dishes for their customers in Seattle’s International District, where many Asian food options abound. This fierce competition makes it necessary to constantly evolve the menu and bring in new tastes and ideas to the traditional Japanese cuisine that Clift learned from his father growing up in Seattle. Clift learned to challenge the standards of Japanese cooking at culinary school and during his time working as an apprentice in a San Francisco Thai restaurant. Clift hopes that his process will continue to bring in more diners and express his creativity.
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| Chad Clift |
Where does this quandary leave chefs like Chad Clift? They have businesses to run and they have to give their clienteles what they want, yet they also have to find new ways to refresh the menu and use their true skills to create bolder, better tastes. One way chefs balance these dueling needs is by employing a team of specialized, skilled assistants and associate chefs at their restaurants to help them make decisions and test out their ideas before they reach customers’ plates. More than simply having brains and sets of taste buds analyzing the same experimental dishes, this makes the entire process of building a menu and creating new dishes a team activity, employing the specific skills of several professionals all working on the same problem. The head chef isn’t alone in his or her work and critical decision-making processes.
Chad Clift and his team work hard at Futoji Aji to create the best, boldest Japanese dishes for their customers in Seattle’s International District, where many Asian food options abound. This fierce competition makes it necessary to constantly evolve the menu and bring in new tastes and ideas to the traditional Japanese cuisine that Clift learned from his father growing up in Seattle. Clift learned to challenge the standards of Japanese cooking at culinary school and during his time working as an apprentice in a San Francisco Thai restaurant. Clift hopes that his process will continue to bring in more diners and express his creativity.
