Extended Meal Service

Appears in
Professional Cooking: 10th Edition
Professional Cooking

By Wayne Gisslen

Published 2025

  • About
  • Customers eat at different times.
  • Often called à la carte cooking because customers usually select items from a written menu (carte in French).
  • Examples: restaurants, short-order counters.
Individual items are cooked to order rather than cooked ahead, but pre-preparation is extensive, down to the final cooking stage.
The short-order cook, for example, must have everything ready to go: cold meats, tomatoes, and other sandwich ingredients sliced and arranged, spreads prepared and ready, hamburger patties shaped, garnishes prepared, and so on. If the cook has to stop during service to do any of these things, orders will back up and service will fall behind.