This is a special message from Johnsonville.
Small plates, tapas, mini-sandwiches and the like are a big deal in restaurants today. Easy and fun to eat, these little nibbles invite recession-wary consumers to dine on a budget many operators say. They encourage them to sample new flavors, ingredients and cuisines they might hesitate to try in large portions. What’s more, they’re the perfect items to go along with beverages at cocktail hour.
Small plates have been stealing the scene from larger items for some time at Bar Louie Restaurants, the 45-unit, Glenview, Ill.-based casual-dining chain that was recently acquired by Sun Capital Partners Inc.
Marc Wuenschel, Bar Louie’s vice president of culinary, estimated that small plates account for between 26 percent and 28 percent of the chain’s overall food business. Customer favorites include Chicken Nachos with spicy cheese sauce ($10.49), Bavarian Pretzel Sticks with cinnamon butter, queso and honey mustard sauce ($7.49), and Adobo Shrimp Skewers with avocado-mango salsa and citrus-chipotle sauce ($9.99).
Rising in popularity in the Bar Louie small plates section are Jalapeno-Cheddar Corn Dogs with spicy ketchup, priced at $7.99.
“I’m a fan of corn dogs,” said Wuenschel. “So when Johnsonville came up with these mini jalapeno-cheddar sausages, we created a corn dog batter with some heat and they have been really taking off.”
During Bar Louie’s happy hour, a select list of small plates is discounted by 50 percent.
“We see groups of ten come in and just have a small plates party,” said Wuenschel.
Mini Corn Dogs appear on the appetizer section of the menu of South Houston, a new restaurant in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood, with a menu billed as “New Southern Comfort cuisine.” The house-made dogs, small enough to eat in a couple of bites, are skewered and cooked in corn-flour batter and served mounted in a wooden plank with cheddar-jalapeno dipping sauce on the side.
“They’re easy to serve and easy to eat,” said executive chef Omar Drammeh.
At Samar by Stephan Pyles in Dallas, chef-owner Stephan Pyles uses a small-plates format to encourage guests to delve into Spanish, Eastern Mediterranean and Indian cuisines.
“I didn’t want to obligate the guest to finish a whole dish of something,” explained Pyles. “You couldn’t mix cultures unless it was by the bite or small taste.”
Favorites include crispy bulgur croquettes with golden beet tzatziki, Asturian beans and clam stew and Indian-style chicken-apricot kebab with saffron and cashews.
“Each person gets a bite, maybe two, of each, and they end up tasting a good portion of the menu that way,” Pyles said. Most plates are priced at between $6 and $8 each.
Joining a growing number of restaurants on the small plate bandwagon is Mimi’s Café, a 146-unit casual-dining chain based in Irvine, Calif. The ten-item slate, priced between $2.99 and $6.99 apiece, features Crab Fritters with citrus remoulade and a Hummus Sampler with original and sundried tomato hummus with basil and feta, baked whole wheat flatbread chips and cucumber slices.
“People are using the small plates in a couple of different ways, as snacks and as starters before their entrees,” said Mimi Somerman, senior vice president of marketing for the chain, which is a subsidiary of Bob Evans Farms Inc., based in Columbus, Ohio.
At Epulo Bistro in Edmonds, Wash., small plates like Fried Calamari & Rock Shrimp with Calabrian chile aioli, mint and cucumber yogurt and Clams & Chorizo, each priced at $11, give suburbanites sophisticated flavor profiles without a dining trek to Seattle.
“People see our plates and say, ‘Wow, this is what you would expect in Belltown,’”said R. Shubert Ho, executive chef and general manager, mentioning the trendy restaurant zone in downtown Seattle.
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