by lspeed | Aug 23, 2026 | RESTAURANT BUSINESS: BEHIND THE KITCHEN DOOR
Personally, I take great pleasure in seeing something mankind has been doing for thousand of years return as a fashionable latest greatest idea. Like walking after a meal, for example. Or taking power naps, something my grandma used to call her little snooze.
Fermentation, one of humanity’s oldest kitchen trick, is enjoying just such a moment. Kombucha occupies expensive refrigerator space. Kimchi escaped Korean restaurants and happily dwells next to burgers and scrambled eggs. Supermarkets sell Kefir to people who thought it’s a Russian airline. And when intestinal plumbing became the gut microbiome, it become fashionable enough for polite breakfast conversation.
Before Refrigerators, We Had Microbes
Our ancestors had no clue what bacteria and yeast were. They simply noticed that when handled correctly, food that should spoil instead became safer, longer-lasting and considerably more interesting.
Before refrigerators, freezers and vacuum packaging, that mattered. Fermentation helped preserve harvests and milk, while simultaneously producing new flavours. Yeast turned grain into bread, and beer and grapes into wine. Bacteria helped transform milk, vegetables and countless other ingredients. It was preservation technology with the happy side effect of making dinner better.
Eventually these practical solutions became part of national identities:
KOREA celebrates its kimchi, where salted vegetables ferment into the spicy, acidic companion to almost everything Korean.
GERMANY made us eat sauerkraut, proving that cabbage, salt and patience can survive winter and accompany a hearty sausage rather well.
JAPAN perfected it’s miso, using soybeans and koji to create one of the world’s great concentrations of savoury flavour.
The list is enormous – yoghurt, cheese, salami, sourdough, soy sauce, fish sauce, beer and wine all owe their existence to microorganisms doing unpaid kitchen work. But when refrigeration arrived, fermentation became less essential for survival. Fortunately, nobody told the cheesemakers, brewers, bakers or winemakers.
Meet Your Several Trillion Dinner Guests
Now fermentation has been rediscovered, but for a completely different reason. Research into the gut microbiome revealed vast communities of microorganisms. Rather than being unwanted passengers, they are involved in digestion, metabolism and immune function. Fermented foods have consequently attracted attention because some contain live microorganisms, while fermentation itself produces compounds that may interact beneficially with our digestive system.
Researchers are still working out exactly what constitutes an ideal microbiome, and anyone claiming to have solved the matter completely is probably trying to sell you a supplement. A recent Associated Press examination of the subject reflects the remarkable shift. Foods once eaten because they were practical, cheap and delicious are now being discussed in connection with probiotics, life and ageing science, even Alzheimer.
As they do, experts caution that fermented does not automatically mean miraculous, and that highly processed products wearing fashionable probiotic clothing are not equivalent to traditional fermented foods. The hope is that at least some people are listening, especially after they saw Dr. Google or Professor ChatGPT endorsing it so vehemently.
Enter The Delicious Irony
From our perspective as restaurant operators, the easily forgotten detail about the fermentation revival is that cooks never abandoned it in the first place. We pickle vegetables because acidity cuts through richness. We use fermented sauces because they deliver extraordinary depth, and not only since the the word umami became a thing. Bakers nurture sourdough starters, and cheesemakers cultivate bacteria. Winemakers worry obsessively about yeast, and charcutiers depend upon carefully controlled microbial activity.
None of these artisans needed the phrase gut health to justify doing so. They did it because fermentation makes food taste good. That in my opinion is the most sensible way to look at its latest renaissance. If traditional fermented foods contribute positively to the ecosystem living inside us, excellent. Science should investigate it more, and thankfully, it is.
As my grandma used to say: “Everything’s better with a pickle”.
Image Credit: https://www.churrascophuket.com (AI Generated)
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© CHURRASCO PHUKET STEAKHOUSE / ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Reprinting, reposting & sharing allowed, in exchange for a backlink and credits
Churrasco Phuket Steakhouse serves affordable Wagyu and Black Angus steaks and burgers. We are open daily from 12noon to 11pm at Jungceylon Shopping Center in Patong / Phuket.
We are family-friendly and offer free parking and Wi-Fi for guests. See our menus, reserve your table, find our location, and check all guest reviews here:
https://ChurrascoPhuket.com/
#Churrascophuket #jungceylon #phuketsteakhouse #affordablewagyu #wagyu
by lspeed | Jun 7, 2026 | RESTAURANT BUSINESS: BEHIND THE KITCHEN DOOR
Full service restaurants occupy a delicate corner of our life. People do not arrive to just consume calories, but to celebrate, flirt, negotiate, reconnect, decompress, apologise, show off, and occasionally propose marriage. The menu itself is part of that ritual. A proper menu has weight, texture, and exudes confidence. It arrives physically at the table like an invitation to slow down for two hours.
But then, Covid showed up and restaurants began asking diners to perform IT support duties before dinner. Laminated menus suddenly looked like biological weapons, printing budgets were collapsing, and everyone was searching for ways to reduce physical contact and staff numbers. Restaurants adapted quickly, and fair enough.
But when the pandemic fizzled out, the emergency solution stayed. Seemingly everywhere, supposedly atmospheric restaurant are making guests sit down, with candles flickering gently, Latin jazz humming in the background, and date seated opposite. Only to discover that the first shared activity of the evening is staring silently at individual mobile phones while waiting for a PDF or website to load over a dodgy WiFi.
Defenders of the QR code system speak about efficiency and flexibility. They mention instant menu updates, lower printing costs, easier translations, dynamic pricing, and integrated up-selling. All true, as even airlines are optimising procedures. But that does not mean anyone wants a steakhouse to feel like checking in at Gate C17.
There is also the matter of what phones on a dining table actually do to human beings. The moment they appear, dinner changes character entirely. One notification becomes six. Somebody checks Instagram “for one second.” A quick reply to a work message turns into an accidental detour through emails, football scores, geopolitical collapse, and three videos involving cats wearing sunglasses and bow ties.
At Churrasco Phuket Steakhouse, we have always noticed and addressed this divide. When our guests sit down, they not only immediately get a chilled watermelon juice welcome drink, and a cold lemon grass scented towel. We then present them with our full and traditionally leather-bound menu, with a side option to use a QR code if they really prefer a digital version. Roughly 99% of our guests though never start scanning, and well over 90% confess to actively dislike QR-only systems when asked. Not mildly dislike, but properly dislike like the kind usually reserved for delayed luggage or warm Chardonnay.
Many younger guests dislike them just as much. Plenty of digitally savvy guests are getting exhausted by the idea that every human interaction now requires scanning, downloading, logging in, verifying, subscribing, or accepting cookies. Sometimes, people simply want to order a Rib Eye without entering a technological ecosystem. And being able to order a real cookie from a real person.
Having said that, some QR menus are useful for translations, dietary information, live cocktail updates, and quick browsing. They work brilliantly in fast food environments where speed matters more than ceremony. Nobody expects a leather bound menu at a beach taco shack or bubble tea counter.
But in a full service restaurant, especially one aspiring to warmth, theatre, and hospitality, removing the physical menu strips away something subtle but utterly important. The experience begins feeling transactional, functional – and ultimately disposable.
Technology in restaurants works best when it stays quietly in the background. Guests appreciate online reservations, efficient payment systems, and digital convenience – right up until the moment the technology itself becomes the main character.
And to restaurateurs like us, this is the entire problem with QR menus. Nobody coming to us is hoping for an improved interface. They want a memorable evening.
Image Credit: https://www.churrascophuket.com (AI Generated)
_ _ _
© CHURRASCO PHUKET STEAKHOUSE / ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Reprinting, reposting & sharing allowed, in exchange for a backlink and credits
Churrasco Phuket Steakhouse serves affordable Wagyu and Black Angus steaks and burgers. We are open daily from 12noon to 11pm at Jungceylon Shopping Center in Patong / Phuket.
We are family-friendly and offer free parking and Wi-Fi for guests. See our menus, reserve your table, find our location, and check all guest reviews here:
https://ChurrascoPhuket.com/
#Churrascophuket #jungceylon #phuketsteakhouse #affordablewagyu #wagyu
by lspeed | May 24, 2026 | RESTAURANT BUSINESS: BEHIND THE KITCHEN DOOR
The restaurant guide world is a peculiar mix of tyre salesmen, rebel critics, anonymous inspectors, and nervous chefs overcooking their stress levels. At the centre of it all sit two enduring heavyweights: the Guide Michelin and Gault & Millau, locked in a decades-long disagreement about how best to judge your dinner.
Tyre giant Michelin did not set out to rule gastronomy, but simply wanted to get more cars on the road. Founded in 1900 by brothers André and Édouard Michelin, the Guide Michelin handed motorists maps, hotel listings, and the occasional place to eat, all in the hope that more driving would lead to more worn tyres. Somewhere along the way, diners began paying more attention to the food than the fuel stops. By 1926, stars appeared, and by 1931, the now-mythical one, two, three-star system was born. Today, earning a star can feel less like culinary recognition and more like being knighted, except the sword is replaced by a tasting menu and the ceremony happens without any fair warning.
Then came Gault & Millau in the late 1960s, looking at Michelin’s polished hierarchy and deciding it needed a bit of loosening up. Founded by Henri Gault and Christian Millau, two critics with a taste for disruption, it championed nouvelle cuisine, lighter sauces, shorter cooking times, and chefs who were encouraged to think rather than simply repeat. Where Michelin felt like a well-tailored suit, Gault & Millau arrived in something slightly more relaxed, collar open, ready to question the menu.
Their scoring systems mirror their personalities. Michelin is elegantly simple – up to three stars, no half measures, and no explanations beyond a few carefully chosen words. You are either in, or you are explaining to your investors why you are not. Gault & Millau prefers nuance, using a 20-point scale and awarding toques, allowing it to say – in effect – “very good, but perhaps rethink the sauce.” It is less thunderbolt, and more ongoing foodie conversation.
In terms of global clout, Michelin still carries the bigger spoon. Its expansion across Europe, Asia, and the Americas has turned it into a kind of culinary passport system. A star in Tokyo attracts a diner from Paris, a promotion will double bookings overnight, but a demotion can lead to an existential crises. And the occasional chef claiming they never wanted it anyway. Gault & Millau, meanwhile, enjoys a quieter authority. It is the guide chefs read when they want to know what other chefs really think, all in a less headline-grabbing, more kitchen-table discussion style.
Both insist on the same core rituals or anonymous inspectors, multiple visits, and a careful distance from the businesses they judge. Whether that distance always holds in a world of sponsorships, tourism boards, and global expansion is a question politely asked and rarely answered in full. What is clear is that both guides now operate in a dining landscape that has shifted dramatically under their feet. Casual concepts thrive, viral social media reviews travel faster than inspectors, and diners increasingly trust a well-lit photo over a discreet star.
They are no longer alone, either. The World’s 50 Best Restaurants offers a glossy, vote-driven ranking that feels part awards show, part culinary Eurovision. La Liste takes a data-heavy approach, compiling scores from across the globe to produce something resembling a gastronomic spreadsheet. And Zagat, the original voice of the crowd, reminds everyone that diners themselves have opinions, many of them loudly expressed.
In general, guides reveal less about food than about how much humans love to rank things. Michelin delivers verdicts, Gault & Millau offers commentary, and the rest provide noise, data, or spectacle. In the end though, nothing will ever replace the ultimate culinary verdict.
That of the guest.
Image Credit: https://www.churrascophuket.com (AI Generated)
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© CHURRASCO PHUKET STEAKHOUSE / ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Reprinting, reposting & sharing allowed, in exchange for a backlink and credits
Churrasco Phuket Steakhouse serves affordable Wagyu and Black Angus steaks and burgers. We are open daily from 12noon to 11pm at Jungceylon Shopping Center in Patong / Phuket.
We are family-friendly and offer free parking and Wi-Fi for guests. See our menus, reserve your table, find our location, and check all guest reviews here:
https://ChurrascoPhuket.com/
#Churrascophuket #jungceylon #phuketsteakhouse #affordablewagyu #wagyu
by lspeed | May 3, 2026 | RESTAURANT BUSINESS: BEHIND THE KITCHEN DOOR
“Enjoy your job” sounds like the sort of advice best ignored when spotted on a laminated poster, or when muttered by an unpopular boss. Yet in restaurants, it is crucial rather than philosophical or optional. There still is that faint belief in our world that seriousness equals quality, as though a slightly grim expression is the secret ingredient behind a perfect Wagyu steak. I still encounter dining rooms that run like well oiled machines yet feel faintly joyless, and kitchens where intensity is worn like a badge of honour rather than a warning sign.
It is an odd posture for an industry whose entire purpose is to give people a good time. Barry Sternlicht of Starwood Capital and W Hotels fame offers a useful test – if you do not like people, choose another profession. Restaurant work quickly sharpens that further, so if you do not like noise, enjoy pace, repetition, and improvisation – plus the peculiar satisfaction of rescuing a service that is coming off the rails – you are in the wrong line of work.
Ours is not a business for the detached, but for the observant, the ones who notice that a table is celebrating something before a word is said, or that the background music is cool until it suddenly is not. A team taking pleasure in the craft moves with a different energy, and not like a checklist being executed. The kitchen flows instead of flails, the floor reads the room rather than recites a script, and the whole place acquires that elusive quality that guests describe – unhelpfully but accurately – as “a good vibe.”
Strip that away and what remains is competence without memory. Orders are taken, plates arrive, bills are settled, and nothing quite lands. Guests rarely recall efficiency unless it fails them, but they do remember the waiter who nudged them toward the right dish, the bartender who improvised, or the small, unnecessary flourish that made the evening feel considered. Our experience has been that restaurants are best remembered for small gestures and those little unexpected extra touches.
Leadership, in this context, has to be less about tightening screws and more about setting the tone. The best operators read a room as closely as they read a report, knowing when to intervene, when to step back, and when to allow a moment of humanity to unfold. Culture is not what is written down, but what happens when the restaurant is full, the tickets are stacking, and someone still finds the time to get the small things right.
Successful restaurants like ours trade in these details, because the product is not just what is on the plate but how it is experienced and remembered. The conclusion, if one insists on having one, is disarmingly simple. Enjoyment in restaurants is not decorative, and it is certainly not optional. It is the mechanism by which places acquire character, teams find reasons to stay, and guests decide to come back without needing to be reminded.
And that is makes makes up great hospitality.
Image Credit: https://www.churrascophuket.com (AI Generated)
_ _ _
© CHURRASCO PHUKET STEAKHOUSE / ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Reprinting, reposting & sharing allowed, in exchange for a backlink and credits
Churrasco Phuket Steakhouse serves affordable Wagyu and Black Angus steaks and burgers. We are open daily from 12noon to 11pm at Jungceylon Shopping Center in Patong / Phuket.
We are family-friendly and offer free parking and Wi-Fi for guests. See our menus, reserve your table, find our location, and check all guest reviews here:
https://ChurrascoPhuket.com/
#Churrascophuket #jungceylon #phuketsteakhouse #affordablewagyu #wagyu
by lspeed | Mar 15, 2026 | RESTAURANT BUSINESS: BEHIND THE KITCHEN DOOR
In our restaurant, our Head Chef is, rather inconveniently for television producers, a calm and balanced person. During our peak seasons, he stands before a grill that behaves less like a cooking surface and more like a military operation. Three dozen steaks at once are fairly standard, sometimes more, each demanding its own treatment and precise moment of intervention.
A Rib Eye prefers the simplicity of medium rare. The next one has been ordered well done. A line up of Tenderloins insists on restraint, patience and widely differing cooking points, while one of our famous Picanhas rewards a decisive sear. Somewhere on the edge of the grill, a Skirt Steak waits to be sliced properly so that it ends up tender rather than obstinate.
Around him the kitchen and restaurant are boiling. Orders pile in, plates depart at second intervals, and the grill emits a steady soundtrack of sizzling fat and metre high flames. Yet our Chef rarely raises his voice. He flips, rests, bastes and checks with the quiet concentration of someone who understands that panic never improves a steak. This has been his pattern for well over a decade, which is precisely why we value him so highly.
Unfortunately, calm chefs like him are often the exception. The restaurant industry has long cultivated a curious figure: the tyrannical head chef who believes culinary excellence is best enforced through shouting, intimidation and the occasional airborne utensil. In this particular mythology, precision thrives best in a climate of fear, and a soufflé rises more reliably if someone nearby is being loudly humiliated.
Television, naturally, has preserved and amplified this character. The most famous embodiment of the angry chef persona is undoubtedly Gordon Ramsay, who managed the impressive feat of transforming volcanic temper into a global media franchise. His television kitchens operate somewhere between cooking school and gladiator spectacle. Contestants tremble under verbal barrages, dishes are condemned with theatrical brutality, and viewers watch the drama unfold while safely seated on their sofas munching popcorn.
The phenomenon is by no means limited to male chefs, although it has also seen prominent female figures accused of similar behaviour. One of the more widely discussed examples involved April Bloomfield, the chef associated with New York’s once fashionable Spotted Pig. Former employees later described a workplace culture in which bullying and intimidation appeared to be part of the daily kitchen rhythm. The issue is therefore less about gender than about overall restaurant culture and leadership.
Which brings us to the latest chapter in this uncomfortable discussion, involving Copenhagen’s once legendary restaurant Noma and its celebrated founder René Redzepi. He has been accused by former staff of violence and intimidation, and of creating a workplace in which shouting, public humiliation and even physical aggression were allegedly common. One chef described going to work there as entering a war zone; another compared the atmosphere to a hospital emergency triage room.
To his credit, Redzepi has acknowledged that he struggled with anger and has spoken about seeking therapy to address his issues. The Noma organisation has also stated that the workplace culture today no longer resembles the one described in these accounts.
Even so, the broader debate within the restaurant industry is unlikely to disappear anytime soon. Running a high performance restaurant like ours, serving over 200 steak covers a night, is unquestionably stressful. Dinner service needs to unfold with the precision of choreography performed under fire. Guests expect perfection rather than explanations, and a steak cooked two minutes too long cannot be persuaded back to medium rare. Still, pressure does not justify abuse.
We as restaurant owners have always maintained that we carry the ultimate responsibility, not only for the quality of the food, but also for the culture in which it is produced. The notion that temper tantrums are a legitimate management strategy is one we have always rejected, and one the industry at large needs to retire.
From day one, we took a deliberately unfashionable and distinctly non TikTok approach. Rather than tolerating theatrical outbursts, we opted for something that would not look dramatic on television – communication. Every quarter or so, the kitchen and service teams sit down together for an open exchange of views and issues. The purpose is not to assign blame, but to identify what works during service, what creates friction, and what could be improved before the next busy season arrives. It is remarkable how many operational problems dissolve once people simply speak to one another like colleagues.
Following these sessions, we organise a complete day off for team activities chosen by the staff themselves. Sometimes it is a beach outing, sometimes dinner somewhere else, occasionally karaoke, games they select, or something entirely unexpected. We as owners help organise and cover the costs. Everyone attends, many with spouses or partners, not as rival departments but as members of the same successful enterprise.
It is, admittedly, not the sort of system that produces viral kitchen meltdowns, but for us it functions rather well. Our restaurant has been operating continuously since January 2012, and we suspect that this rather mundane emphasis on mutual respect between kitchen and service teams has contributed more to that longevity than any amount of shouting or media coverage ever could.
The culinary world will continue to produce stories of chefs throwing pans, berating apprentices or declaring war on failed plate designs. Meanwhile, our own kitchen remains quietly occupied with the more traditional task of cooking excellent steaks.
Three dozen at once, sometimes more. No shouting required.
Image Credit: https://churrascophuket.com (AI Generated)
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© CHURRASCO PHUKET STEAKHOUSE / ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Reprinting, reposting & sharing allowed, in exchange for a backlink and credits
Churrasco Phuket Steakhouse serves affordable Wagyu and Black Angus steaks and burgers. We are open daily from 12noon to 11pm at Jungceylon Shopping Center in Patong / Phuket.
We are family-friendly and offer free parking and Wi-Fi for guests. See our menus, reserve your table, find our location, and check all guest reviews here:
https://ChurrascoPhuket.com/
#Churrascophuket #jungceylon #phuketsteakhouse #affordablewagyu #wagyu
by lspeed | Mar 8, 2026 | RESTAURANT BUSINESS: BEHIND THE KITCHEN DOOR
In our business, reputation is not a side dish, but the main course. You can source the best produce, age your steaks to perfection, polish the glasses until they sing under the lights, and still find your week defined by a single paragraph written at midnight on a smartphone. That is the modern dining room. It extends far beyond your four walls and lives online, where star ratings quietly shape tomorrow’s reservations.
Online reviews are today’s word of mouth, only faster and less forgiving. Once published, they live on the Internet forever, because neither Google or Tripadvisor care if you survive or die. A strong run of positive feedback lifts a restaurant’s profile and builds momentum. A poorly handled negative review lingers like overcooked fish.
Reviews are not just commentary, they are public theatre. And how you respond is part of the daily show. This is where a simple mantra proves surprisingly effective: Smile, Apology, Gesture. It sounds almost too neat, but in practice, it is disciplined, professional, and remarkably powerful.
Smile: Stay Positive
When you read a negative review, especially one that feels unfair, your first instinct is not calm serenity. You may want to reach for blood pressure medication, or at least set the record straight. You want to explain that Saturday night was fully booked, that the kitchen was running at capacity, that the guest arrived forty minutes late and ordered extra well done Wagyu.
All of that may be true, but none of it belongs in your opening sentence. “Smile” does not mean ignoring problems, but choosing tone over temper. A measured, friendly response signals to everyone reading that you are composed and professional. It also tells future guests that you care enough to listen and engage.
Even harsh feedback contains information. Sometimes it reveals a genuine oversight, or at least it can show a perception gap between what you think you deliver and what guests experience. Public defensiveness rarely wins applause, but professional composure usually does.
Apology: Take Responsibility
An apology is not a legal confession, but an acknowledgment of someone’s disappointment. And there is a difference, especially in restaurants like ours with a prevailing mantra of “Nobody Leaves Unhappy”. Phrases such as “We are sorry to hear that your visit did not meet expectations” validate the guest’s experience without assigning blame, before facts are clear. The goal is not to argue details point by point, but to demonstrate empathy.
In hospitality, guest perception is your reality, fair or not. If a guest felt overlooked, rushed, or dissatisfied, that feeling is real to them, even if your views or the internal report reads differently. Avoid long explanations, blaming staff, suppliers, the weather, or other guests. A public reply is not the place for operational analysis, but a place for reassurance. A concise, sincere apology shows maturity, and shows that you understand the long game. Restaurants are built on trust, and that trust grows when guests feel heard and acknowledged.
Gesture: Make It Right
The final step is action. Words set the tone, but a gesture rebuilds the bridge, and this does not always require a grand offer. Sometimes a personal invitation to return and experience the restaurant again is enough. Sometimes a complimentary course, a discount, or a direct line to management makes sense.
The key is relevance. If the issue was slow service, mention that improvements have been implemented and invite the guest back to see the difference. If a dish disappointed, offer to prepare it personally next time. Specific gestures signal accountability, and show that the response is not templated but considered and thoughtful.
At the same time, gestures must be sustainable, because restaurants don’t survive by giving away the dining room every time someone complains online. The ultimate aim is not to reward negativity, but to demonstrate fairness and goodwill.
Life Beyond The Damage
Handled correctly, a negative review can actually strengthen your reputation. Prospective guests often read the worst reviews first, wanting to see how you react under pressure. A composed, empathetic, solution focused response can turn a potential liability into evidence of professionalism. Positive reviews deserve attention too. Engagement suggests pride. Thanking guests publicly reinforces loyalty and encourages repeat visits. Silence, by contrast, suggests indifference.
Every plate leaving the kitchen carries expectation. And every review, glowing or critical, offers a chance to refine your craft and public face. So even if it’s difficult sometimes, do the “Smile, Apologise & Make a Gesture” routine. In the restaurant world, reputation served daily, with every reply having to be as carefully considered as any dish on the menu.
Image Credit: https://churrascophuket.com (AI Generated)
_ _ _
© CHURRASCO PHUKET STEAKHOUSE / ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Reprinting, reposting & sharing allowed, in exchange for a backlink and credits
Churrasco Phuket Steakhouse serves affordable Wagyu and Black Angus steaks and burgers. We are open daily from 12noon to 11pm at Jungceylon Shopping Center in Patong / Phuket.
We are family-friendly and offer free parking and Wi-Fi for guests. See our menus, reserve your table, find our location, and check all guest reviews here:
https://ChurrascoPhuket.com/
#Churrascophuket #jungceylon #phuketsteakhouse #affordablewagyu #wagyu
