世界頂級餐廳如何平衡嚴苛的工序重複和創新？

The restaurant industry is notorious for being competitive, risky, and low-margin. This is no less true for the world’s most acclaimed high-end restaurants. Despite being able to charge hundreds of dollars for a meal and being fully booked months in advance, top restaurants often still have a hard time turning a profit. And they face an even greater challenge: maintaining flawless consistency, while simultaneously being innovative and cutting-edge.

餐飲業以競爭激烈、風險大和利潤低著稱。對於世界上最受歡迎的高檔餐廳來說，情況同樣如此。儘管能夠收取數百美元的餐費和提前數月預訂，頂級餐廳仍然很難盈利。他們面臨着更大的挑戰:保持時刻完美的運營，同時不斷創新。

While cooking is seen as creative, high-end cooking is mainly about constant, rigorous repetition, in a highly controlled and hierarchical environment. To receive three Michelin stars – the highest rating given by the prestigious Michelin Guide – restaurants must deliver a consistently flawless experience over many visits. This means achieving precise standardization and strong quality control.

烹飪被認爲是有創意的，高端的烹飪主要是在高度控制和分等級的環境中嚴謹工序的不斷重複。要達到米其林三星的標準——這是著名的米其林指南提供的最高評級——餐廳必須在多次訪問中提供一貫完美的體驗。這意味着要實現精確的標準化和嚴格的質量控制。

For example, at The Fat Duck in the UK (which has had three Michelin stars since 2004, except in 2016 when it closed for refurbishment, and where I worked on the innovation side), cooking temperatures are systematically controlled to 0.1°C, and most recipes are specified with up to 40 steps for a single component on a plate. Each cook is highly trained and selectively recruited, yet he or she will only be tasked with producing a few components, and will practice hundreds of times under direct supervision before achieving the necessary level of craftsmanship. The preparations, produced by small teams or individual cooks, are progressively assembled, with sous-chefs (akin to middle managers) controlling the quality at every step. Before the final dishes are served, the head chef personally tastes a sample from each batch, maintaining control over every single aspect.

例如, 在英國肥鴨餐廳（Fat Duck）(自2004年以來被評爲米其林三星級餐廳，2016年因關閉整修未獲三星級稱號，我負責此餐廳的創新工作),烹飪溫度系統單位控制到0.1°C,每道菜的一道工序就需要40多個步驟，每一位廚師都經過了高度的訓練，選拔標準嚴苛，每位廚師只負責部分工序，在達到必要的工藝水平之前，將會在直接監督下進行數百次的訓練。由小團隊或個人廚師所做的準備工作，會逐步進行，由高級廚師(類似於中層管理人員)來控制每一步的質量。在最後的菜餚端上來之前，主廚親自品嚐每一批的樣品，保持嚴格控制每一道菜的每一個程序。

However, this kind of rigorous repetition would seem to stymie innovation – by limiting opportunities to learn from mistakes or to search for new ideas – and innovation is another critical dimension for success in the high-end restaurant world. For instance, it’s a main consideration for the similarly influential 50 Best Restaurants of the World list.

然而，這種嚴格的重複似乎阻礙了創新——從錯誤中學習的機會或者有新的想法的機會被大大減少——而創新是高端餐廳成功的另一個關鍵因素。舉例來說，世界上50家頂級餐廳有着類似的顧慮。

Of course, consistency and creativity aren’t mutually exclusive. A handful of extraordinary restaurants have managed to deliver both the flawless standards of three Michelin stars and the innovation demanded by the 50 Best list – and they’ve managed to leverage this acclaim to achieve growth. In my work studying and consulting with innovative companies, I’ve found that this balance is best achieved through dedicated time and space for research and experimentation, as well as a thorough process for both iterating on and standardizing new inventions.

當然，嚴格的工序重複和創造力並不是相互排斥的。少數幾家出色的餐廳成功地實現了米其林三星的完美標準和50個最佳榜單所要求的創新——他們成功地利用了這一點來實現利潤增長。在我的研究和諮詢創新公司的工作中，我發現這種平衡最好是通過專門的研究和實驗來達成，以及對新發明進行更迭和標準化。

Let’s consider an example. The first restaurant to achieve both lists was El Bulli in Spain. With only one Michelin star in 1987, the restaurant decided to try something new. Since the business was particularly slow during the winter, its owners, Ferran Adrian and Juli Soler, decided to close shop 2-5 months a year to travel and search for new dish ideas. In 1990 they gained a second Michelin Star, and in 1994, they became the first high-end restaurant to invest in a development team and a lab.

舉個例子。第一家登上這兩個榜單的餐廳是西班牙的El Bulli。1987年，這家餐廳只有一顆米其林之星，於是決定嘗試一些新的東西。由於在冬季生意特別清淡，其所有者Ferran Adrian和Juli Soler決定每年關閉2-5個月的店鋪，以尋找新的菜式。1990年，他們獲得了第二顆米其林星，1994年，他們成爲第一家投資開發團隊和實驗室的高端餐廳。

Akin to an R&D facility for a large restaurant chain or fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) brand, their lab hosted a small team of chefs, and occasionally other professionals, such as food scientists, designers, or engineers, in a mixed kitchen and office space. Unlike test kitchens of large chains or FMCG products, the team would work in R&D during the winter and then resume restaurant operations during the summer. And instead of concentrating on cost reduction, shelf life, or replicability, they would focus on the creative process and the customer’s experience.

類似於一家大型連鎖餐廳或快速消費品品牌的研發機構，他們的實驗室裏有一小羣廚師，偶爾還有其他專業人士，比如食品科學家、設計師或工程師，還有混合廚房和辦公空間。與大型連鎖或快速消費品品牌的測試廚房不同，該團隊在冬季進行研發工作，並在夏季恢復餐廳運營。他們專注於創新和客戶的經驗，而不是降低成本、保質期或可提高菜品的可複製性。

Three years later, El Bulli rose to three Michelin Stars, and when the first edition of the 50 Best guide was released in 2002, they earned the top spot, positioning Spain as one of the main gastronomic destinations in the world. The company grew through consulting for other companies, opening new business lines (e.g. books and cooking gadgets), developing brand partnerships, and opening more restaurants. Though the main restaurant closed in 2011, they subsequently reopened it as the ElBulli Foundation, while the other restaurants and business lines are still operating today.

三年後，El Bulli成爲米其林三星餐廳，50佳指南 (the 50 Best guide)第一期在2002年發佈時，他們贏得了榜首，西班牙成爲世界上主要的美食目的地之一。該公司通過爲其他公司提供諮詢、開設新的業務線(例如書籍和烹飪小工具)、發展品牌夥伴關係、開設更多的餐館而不斷髮展。這家餐廳於2011年關閉，隨後又重新開業，成爲ElBulli基金，其餐館和商業公司仍在運營。

Other restaurants, like the Fat Duck and El Celler de Can Roca in Spain, also set up fully fledged test kitchens before attaining the top ranking in both guides. Like at El Bulli, the chefs working in these labs divide their time between the restaurant operation and R&D projects aimed at improving the customer experience. The projects range from developing new techniques and ingredients to designing final dishes and products. Some labs even partnered with universities to carry out research projects and explore subjects as varied as sensory perception, sustainability, narrative theory, and nostalgia.

其他的餐廳，比如Fat Duck和西班牙的El Celler de Can Roca餐廳，也設立了成熟的測試廚房，之後成功登上了兩項榜單。就像在El Bulli餐廳一樣，在這些實驗室工作的廚師們周旋於餐廳運營和研發項目，以改善客戶體驗。這些項目包括開發新技術、配料以及設計最終的菜品和產品等等。一些實驗室甚至與大學合作開展研究項目，探索各種各樣的學科，如感官知覺、可持續性、敘事理論和懷舊心理。

Although these efforts were expensive, the labs provided the capacity for numerous projects that generated revenue, and helped attract a wide community of collaborators that led to numerous innovations.

儘管這些項目花費不菲，但實驗室提高了餐廳研發更多項目的能力，從而爲餐廳帶來更多利潤，並吸引了大量的合作者，從而提高創新能力。

But while a dedicated lab expands a restaurant’s capacity for R&D, innovation more importantly has to be embedded in the DNA of the organization. High-end restaurants that cannot afford a team and space solely devoted to R&D still make innovation a key value alongside consistency. At The Fat Duck, a conceptual dish is developed each month by one of the restaurant cooks for the whole team to taste, while Italian restaurant Osteria Francescana (ranked #1 in the 50 Best in 2016 and with 3 Michelin Stars since 2012) holds frequent brainstorms and feedback sessions with the head chef and general kitchen staff. This collective culture of creativity multiplies the pool of ideas and softens resistance to new products and processes being adopted.

但是，雖然實驗室提高了餐廳的研發能力，但更重要的是，創新必須嵌入到該組織的DNA中，成爲該餐廳的一個特徵。無法負擔得僱傭團隊、成立實驗室的高端餐廳仍然在保證嚴格程序的同時保證創新。Fat Duck餐廳裏的廚師每個月都會開發一道概念菜，供大家試菜；意大利餐館Francescana(2016年在50佳餐廳中排名第一，2012年起獲米其林三星稱號)定期組織主廚和廚房員工舉行頭腦風暴和反饋會議。這種創造性的集體文化激發所有人的創意，並使餐廳更容易接受新產品和新工藝。

Let’s look at how the Fat Duck Group (their parent company) does this. First, the company’s leadership agrees on the core concept for each of its business units (the restaurants and other commercial lines). Then a team – generally composed of the CEO, the company’s head chef, the head of R&D, and the head of the unit – generates a series of loose ideas that could become products or features of each customer experience. These ideas are then divided and assigned to the R&D team, the restaurant chefs for prototyping and testing, and in the case of consumer electronics (cooking gadgets), jointly to the business partner’s R&D and the internal R&D.

讓我們來看看Fat Duck集團(Fat Duck母公司)是如何做到這一點的。首先，該公司的領導層贊成其每一個業務單元(餐廳和其他商業線路)的核心概念。然後，一個團隊——通常由首席執行官、公司的總廚師長、研發主管和部門負責人組成——提出一系列零散想法，這些想法可能成爲每個客戶體驗的產品或特徵。之後，這些想法被分配給研發團隊和餐廳廚師進行原型設計和測試，如果需要使用或者研發消費類電子產品(烹飪小器具)，該團隊將會與商業夥伴的研發機構以及公司內部研發機構合作。

All the projects follow a specific development process, alternating between collective ideation or feedback and focused work by a small team. For restaurant dishes, the development team will quickly prototype and iterate through numerous versions of the dish and its components, either in the lab or if a lab is not available, in the main kitchen during slow hours.

所有的項目都遵循一個特定的發展過程，要麼是集體思維發散或意見反饋，要麼是一個小團隊進行集中工作。就餐館菜餚而言，開發團隊會快速的製作出原型，在接下來的時間裏在實驗室或廚房中，不斷地改進菜餚和原料。

Once the results start to approach a finished product, the team will seek input from senior and junior chefs, as well as sommeliers, waiters, and other staff. After a few cycles of improvement, the project team will hand the recipes to the line cooks to prepare. At this stage, the objective is not to hand down a finished recipe and test the line cook capacity to produce it. Rather, the goal is to test the recipe’s written instructions. Both the line cook and the development team taste the result and, when problems are spotted, work together to improve the recipe until the results are reliable, consistent, and delicious.

實驗即將完成時，團隊將諮詢資深和初級廚師、侍酒師、服務員和其他工作人員的意見。經過幾個週期的改進後，項目團隊將把食譜交給流水線廚師來準備。在這個階段，我們的目標不是製作一個完整的食譜，測試生產線的烹飪能力。與之相反，我們的目標是測試配方的細節是否準確無誤。生產線廚師和開發團隊都會品嚐成菜，發現問題時，雙方會一起改進菜譜，直到菜品達到預期目標、美味可口。

The head chef oversees each project from the early stages, and decides when to serve a first taste to regular customers for further feedback. This process reduces cultural clashes between departments, improves the quality of outputs, and bridges the gap between a raw idea and consistently producing a finished product at scale.

主廚從項目早期就監督整個過程，並適時爲熟客提供初次品嚐機會，以獲得進一步的反饋。這一過程減少了部門之間的文化衝突，提高了產出的質量，可以快速將初步想法轉化爲成菜。

The most highly acclaimed restaurants imbed creativity and learning across the organization by creating spaces and processes for both collective input and focused development. They show that a culture of precision and attention to detail can co-exist with constant re-invention, and by leveraging this core competence to achieve prestigious rankings, partnerships, and associated businesses, generate growth.

最受歡迎的餐廳通過創造激發創新和專注發展的空間和項目，使得創新和學習融入餐廳文化之中。這表明，精確和注重細節的餐廳文化可以與持續創新共存，並通過利用這種核心能力來提升排名、發展夥伴關係和相關業務，從而促進利潤增長。