Rant: my old sous told me to stop plating so tight, and he was dead right

Patricia Black · 2026-10-26T19:30:03.764517+00:00

Six years back I worked under a sous at a place in Providence who kept telling me to loosen up my plates and stop tweezering every last thing. I ignored him for months because I thought tight plates looked like the magazine photos. Then we ran a 120-cover Saturday and every dish sat under the pass an extra minute or two while I fiddled with dots of sauce, and the expediter finally pulled me aside and said the food was going out cold. Next service I spread things out, used bigger swooshes, let the plate breathe, and our ticket times dropped by almost a full minute. Guests never said a word about the change, but the servers stopped having to apologize for the wait. Now I want to know, what advice from an older cook did you fight at first and later admit was correct?

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Rant: my old sous told me to stop plating so tight, and he was dead right | Chefs - The Community Guide