Nouvelle cuisine invented individually plated dishes?

[Shalmanese]

In the latest Top Chef Blog, Tom Colicchio states:

For one thing, it is credited with the plating of dishes prior to service, as opposed to tableside after their presentation to the diners on platters. This led, in turn, to smaller portions and to attention to and development of presentation styles on the plate.

This is something I've never heard of before. Is it true that before nouvelle cuisine, the custom was to serve family style or tableside as opposed to individually plated dishes?

[Lisa Shock]

I always thought it was a restaurant thing, of course restaurants as we know them didn't really start gaining popularity until after the French revolution -if I recall my food history correctly. I mean, any time people at the same table can order completely different meals, they will be plated in the kitchen. If you go back to the days when eating out meant going to an inn or tavern, then yes, an innkeeper generally made one big dinner and served it on platters and in tureens like a large household. But, as soon as menus offered options, plating had to start happening.

The platters are what you are supposed to expect from a good/fancy meal in a private home.

I have been to restaurants, most notably a Swiss place back in the 1960's, where each person got their main from the kitchen and the sides were presented in bowls for family style service. But, that may have been idiosyncratic to a few establishments.

[Baron d'Apcher]

The plating of dishes prior to service is a streamlined version of Russian style service and consistent with the austere opulence of the “Nouvelle Cuisine” ethos, though it depends on what one considers to be “Nouvelle Cuisine”. The term recycled itself throughout history, used by La Chapelle in the 18th Century and Escoffier 150 years later. The current accepted period of “Nouvelle Cuisine” coined by Gault-Millau would be post WWII with the initial progenitor being Fernand Point, then perpetuated 20 years later by Bocuse, Chapelle, Troisgros Bros, Guérard, Vergé and Senderens.

There are 3 fundamental styles of dinner service:

à la Française (French) -buffet

à l’Anglaise (English) –efficiently passed buffet

à la Russe (Russian) –tableside plated showmanship

Whatever the case, plated “Russian” service goes back to 19th century and was introduced to the French by Prince Alexandre Kourakine, Russian ambassador to France from 1808-1812. Until then dainty French meals were served in the French manner –luxurious buffets or Buca di Beppo "family style” though often going cold and losing their aesthetics upon being served. Russian service however ensured hot food being served hot and more attention given to the plating of each dish with large joints of meat often presented whole (as is still done in upper tier restaurants) and then either plated in the kitchen or carved tableside. The English manner, oft preferred for banquets, involved a server serving food from a platter from the left with the help of utensils or tongs but sacrificed delicate plating attention.

The liabilities of Russian service were that the extravagance demanded a highly skilled and large staff. Contemporary Nouvelle Cuisine was lighter than the traditional cream & butter stalwart recipes and consequently such smaller, lighter, humbler portions demanded more plating artistry to satisfy the dining guest as opposed to the starchy yet spectacularly flamboyant presentations of yesteryear, the likes of which I passionately research and attempt to revive.

Edited December 23, 2009 by Baron d'Apcher (log)

[Busboy]

Thinking back to my early days as budding gourmet, I don't recall all courses being prepared tableside but quite often they were finished there -- I can recall tuxedoed waiters rolling carts next to the table, firing up a gas burner and finishing off a steak and its sauce for me. Very elegant.

Years later, when I waited tables at a nouvelle joint of some distinction, the chef probably would have slit his wrists rather than let a mere waiter mess with one of his fastidious platings.

Edited December 23, 2009 by Busboy (log)