Better the soup you know

As the credit crunch tightens its grip on spending for both kitchens and customers, soups are set to be this winter’s hottest-selling menu item. They’re inexpensive, convenient and tasty – but will the classic recipes be enough to satisfy discerning modern day diners? Jodie McLeod finds out how to maximise soup sales this season.

For the most part, Australians are adventurous eaters. Our inner city streets are teeming with cuisine choices – from Thai restaurants and Middle Eastern eateries to sushi bars, European fine dining spots and South American grills – reflective of the average Aussie epicure’s willingness to try new flavours and fusions. You’d imagine, then, that when it comes to our culture’s traditional foods, local diners would be equally as open to experimentation.

Interestingly, this is not the case. Try a twist on fish and chips, pies, or our country’s other iconic specials-board dish – the ‘soup of the day’ – and you’ll have more leftover cauliflower and white truffle bisque than you know what to do with. While it might be delicious, it just won’t sell.

Sticking to the recipes that Aussie diners know is the way to sell soups, and never has this rule-of-thumb been truer than for this year; because it’s in times like these, when money is tight, that diners are more likely to order meals in which they know exactly what to expect.

Familiar flavours

Soup is the universal ‘soul food’, revered throughout history as the ultimate recovery meal: easy to eat, easy to digest, warming and hearty. Every culture has its version: the Vietnamese have their ritualistic breakfast Pho, the Hungarians warm up with ladles of goulash and the French start meals with spoonfuls of their namesake onion broth. Australia has its own traditional soup recipes, as well as our own set of expectations about how soups are served and priced at restaurants: soups-of-the-day must be traditional, satiating, served with a crusty bread roll, and most importantly – inexpensive. In this sense, the soup isn’t just a food – it’s a food with a function. Change the recipe and the rules, and you change its role as edible ‘medicine’, which – in a financial crisis – could be precisely what diners are looking for.

“Soup and pies are the two things that customers won’t experiment with,” says David Braim, executive chef at Melbourne’s Old England Hotel. Braim, whose cooking career has spanned around thirty years, says that the Old England sticks to tried-and-true recipes – like chunky minestrone, lamb and barley broth, or potato and leek – and he rarely sees a dry bowl because if it. Even though his clientele are adventurous in other meal choices (they embrace Braim’s weekly international cuisine promotions) when it comes to soups, they like familiarity. “It’s comfort food and they want to feel comfortable with it – they want to recognise it,” says Braim. “We’ve tried [experimenting] before, but you end up just throwing it out. We know now that you just can’t mess with [soups].”

Dan D’Alfonso, owner and manager of a specialty soup restaurant and café in Melbourne, Savoia, knew he would come up against a fairly conservative market when he opened for business in 2004. His restaurant serves a massive eighteen varieties of soups, amongst other Italian-themed fare, ranging from old favourites like minestrone or pumpkin to more exotic recipes, including the very traditional Italian soup Stracciatella (a chickenbased soup with egg, parsley and pastina) or the Portuguese soup Caldo Verde (cabbage, potato, chorizo sausage). The top seller at Savoia has always been minestrone, with close followers including Mexican chilli bean, pumpkin, potato and leek and their four varieties of chicken soups. In the context of a specialty café the more interesting soups do sell, but are kept on a slower rotation. He admits that when it comes to soups, Australians like to play it safe.

“People usually stick to what they know,” he says. “They might try one or two outside of that, but it’s amazing to see how many people just limit themselves to those few they’re familiar with.”

Soup sales tips

In addition to making familiar soups, Jeremy Clark, executive chef at Radisson Plaza Hotel’s restaurant, Bistro-Fax, in Sydney, says that making them with fresh and seasonal ingredients will help to keep sales up, costs down, and quality high.

Clark, who has been in his current position for five years and before that worked at such high-end establishments as W Hotel in Woolloomooloo and the Bather’s Pavilion on Sydney’s Balmoral Beach, works with a provedore at Flemington markets to get the freshest produce.

“We always look at what’s available in the market that day and produce a soup from that – whether it’s broccoli, pumpkin, zucchini, carrot – whatever I can get at a good price,” he says. “You’ve got to keep it seasonal, too, because obviously seasonal produce is the cheapest,” he adds. “There’s no point in trying to source something that’s totally out of season, and trying make a soup out of that, because at the end of the day you’ll be having to pay more for it, and then you’ll have to translate that onto the guest or customer. Keep it simple, very seasonal and it’s a win-win situation.”

Another trick to help maximise sales is to treat diners to a sample of your daily soup special upon arrival. At the Radisson, guests returning to the hotel and recuperating in the lobby after a long, cold winter’s day are often greeted with a consommé sampler, which helps to draw guests in for a meal. Clark will also occasionally present already-seated diners with an espresso-sized soup appetiser, or amuse bouche (English translation: ‘amuse the mouth’).

“Often the guest will then ask to have a whole bowl of it,” he says. “Using that strategy we can work out what’s popular and what isn’t in an affordable way,” he says.

D’Alfonso says the other key trend he’s spotted with soup spending is that people in the market for soup are those looking for a healthier alternative. “A large percentage of our customers are women in the 25-40 demographic that are really looking for something different and healthy,” he says. Targeting this group of health-conscious diners with lighter recipes can make for heartier soup sales.

Soups are also a great way to make use of an oversupply of ingredients, providing they marry well together in the pot. Clark stumbled upon his now personal favourite soup by tossing together excess supplies of zucchini, pancetta and thyme. “That’s the joy of soups,” he says.

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