Plating- refers to the art of arranging,
This trend works best
decorating, and presenting food in a way
that improves its aesthetic appeal to the
diner when served.
8 Modern Food Plating Trends &
Presentation Styles
1. Landscape Technique
Taking inspiration from landscape
gardens, this linear arrangement of food
is usually kept low and long.
3. Food on organic materials Technique
Using organic materials such as wood,
slate and stone as a plating device
lends a more rustic and back-to-nature
feel to dishes.
5. The Nordic Look Technique
Make ribbons or chunks of vegetables
and scatter herbs on a dish to garnish
for seemingly effortless style.
7. Bathing Technique
Bathing is a pretty self-explanatory trend – it
involves having your core dish sit in a
pool of sauce or jus.
when your sauce is bright or eye-catching
and requires dish elements that are perfect
for soaking up flavour.
2. Free-form Technique
Free-form plating treats the plate as a
canvas for a work of abstract art. The
chef may use splashes or splatters of
sauce, or more precise brushes or dots and
swirls. The other elements are then carefully
placed in an artistic fashion across the
canvas.
4. Futuristic Technique
Making use of sleek materials like metal,
glass and steel, futuristic plating creates
a cutting edge and futuristic plating like
the example below.
6. Hide and Seek Technique
Another more playful technique, this trend
involves concealing elements of the dish
by layering all the element on top of each
other. This is a great way to surprise diners
and release elements of the dish at
controlled moments.
8. Super Bowl Technique
Bowl food is a massive trend, with
cookbooks and restaurants to match.
Try a more elegant styled bowl; used for
smaller dishes, like starter or
entremets.
 aesthetically pleasing result. You
basically break your plate up into a grid
FINDING THE RIGHT PLATE system of 9 block and try to avoid using
the bull’s eye itself because that’s a so-
Which plate you choose can make or called dead spot. Also try not to use any
break your dish, says South African of the spots in the corners.
Chef Jack Coetzee. Try to avoid
symmetry, it’s not very interesting. And
you need to create some height on your
plate. However, if you are blatantly
going for symmetry, then you can get
Round plate
away with it because it’s your intention.
These are most commonly used. The
But the plates do look very average if
same rule applies to your grid system on
you’re trying to do something and you
this plate, except you don’t have to
end up with it looking symmetrical. You
worry about all the dead corners. Try not
can follow his course on plating in our
to get anything in the middle unless it’s
UFS Academy for a more visual
deliberately in the middle.
explanation.

Here are a couple of take-outs he

shares on the different shapes of plates
you can use and their possibilities to
present your food.

Rectangular or elongated
plate
Using a rectangualr plate is effective if
you have lots of small little garnishes
that can wind their way through the
length of the plate, making it look like a
garden.

Square plate
This is not the easiest shape to work
with. You have to use the Rule of
Thirds, which is a theory dictating how
an image (in this case your plate) should
be composed in order to create an