Imagine this scenario: you get dressed up for a night out on the town. You arrive at the restaurant that your friend selected. The curb appeal looks nice. You enter the space and the host instructs you to have a seat wherever you like, gesturing to a table with old mail and someone’s glass of water from breakfast or a sofa on the other side of the room. You and your friend decide to sit at the table. The server approaches you and states that they do not have printed menus but can list off a few options after checking with the kitchen. Upon their return, they state the daily “specials” are tacos, pizza, fried rice, lasagna, roasted chicken with rice, cheeseburger, grilled cheese, and sushi… they pause and jet off to the kitchen again. Faintly in the background, you hear your server yelling from the kitchen, “We can make you a baked potato, maybe we can make pot roast, but that's going to be awhile.” You and your friend look at each other in the way that best friends, siblings, or lovers only know how to do, speaking with only eyes, you both decide to leave for another restaurant down the street. Surprisingly, this quirky dining experience is acceptable at home but never in a restaurant, you wouldn't dare spend your money in a restaurant that can’t center on a style of cuisine, let alone force you to sit at a dirty table. So why do we allow ourselves to do this at home? Dining at a clean table or sofa allows us to relax and feel special, and giving ourselves a simplified menu keeps things simple for the cook and the diner, which in this case are both you.
So why is choosing an aesthetic important? In the scenario above, you can only imagine how stressful it would be for a restaurant to maintain a menu of that vast variety without worrying about food waste and spending countless hours prepping every component of each dish. The chef would also have to stock their pantry with ingredients from a variety of cuisines, taking up precious space that they desperately need in their kitchen for more important ingredients and equipment.
Good restaurants don’t just pop up overnight. There is a team that spends countless hours curating the restaurants aesthetic so that from the moment you walk in until the moment you leave everything is cohesive. This makes your experience as a diner special and is one of the reasons you revisit your favorite restaurants time and time again. It also makes the kitchens lives easier as they are able to center in on a style of cuisine that they know their patrons will return to over and over.
The steps below will assist you in curating your kitchen's aesthetic. If you yourself have a keen interest in fashion, home decor, or any form of art, it is most likely that you already have an idea of the aesthetic that makes you who you are, and I urge you to lean into that when it comes to curating your House Menu. If you have others living with you, have them do this exercise as well. As inspiration I have listed my answers for our dwelling below each question.