Easy Food Presentation Tips: How to Garnish and Decorate Your Meals

A pleasing food presentation is good marketing for your food. Even those who lack artistic skills can present an exciting plate of food, using a few basic guidelines.

Decorating with Garnishes

Avoid decorating food with anything inedible (except for birthday candles and toys on children’s cakes). You introduce an artificial element that does nothing to excite taste buds.

• Any edible garnish should be compatible with the underlying food. To ensure compatibility, use an ingredient from the main dish in a different form. For a chicken dish seasoned with rosemary, garnish with a rosemary sprig. Or use shaved chocolate curls on a chocolate cake.
• Garnish with a natural complement, e.g. lemon slices on fish or orange slices with pork. If you are using a garnish not found in the dish, mentally taste the combination of the dish and garnish (chopped parsley on a cheesecake = incompatible).
• Complex dishes require simple garnishes; simple dishes can handle more complex garnishes. Parsley on a beef stew makes sense, just as a combination of finely chopped tomatoes, carrots,and spring onions nicely top a plain chicken breast or trout.
• Think natural. The use of real flowers to decorate cakes (or salads, or soups) provides easy, vibrant coloring. Buy flowers that are naturally grown, i.e. without insecticides, and either use the petals separately or the whole flower. For an even more interesting fruit dessert garnish, make frosted fruit by painting on some lightly beaten egg white, rolling the fruit in superfine sugar, and letting it dry overnight.

Plating Your Food Artistically

• Use platters. Put both the meat dish and accompanying vegetable on the same platter, arranged pleasingly. Don’t crowd the platter, and keep color in mind. White mashed potatoes surrounding a plate of chicken breasts are not exciting. Put a row of glazed carrots between the two, and some chopped green herbs around the edge instead.
• Present the food in a geometrically pleasing shape. Make several diagonal slices in a chicken breast, not quite all the way through, and fan out the pieces. Alternate the heights of the food items. For example, lean a lamb chop or slices of steak against a mound of potatoes instead of just laying the two side by side.
• Use an odd number of pieces on the food or on the plate, i.e. one or three strawberries, not two or four. Odd numbers are more pleasing to the eye.
• Remember two words: “sprinkle” and “drizzle." Sprinkle chopped nuts, herbs, vegetables, powdered sugar, powdered cocoa, breadcrumbs, fruit rind, finely chopped vegetables, etc. to add interest to a dull presentation or, to hide imperfections. Store powdered sugar and cocoa in shakers, and liquid garnish in squeeze bottles.