When a beloved chain restaurant has a scorching new sandwich that will get everybody speaking, you most likely have somebody like Ian Ramirez to thank. A chef, culinary advisor, and co-founder of Mad Honey Culinary Studio and Items, he’s the man that manufacturers rent to get their product on the menu, and make it look and style good—whether or not it’s a sauce, syrup, unfold, or spice.
Ian has spent his profession discovering revolutionary methods to make mouth-watering meals for purchasers—and one in every of his newest elements is synthetic intelligence. Ian makes use of AI to sort out the repetitive, time-consuming elements of menu planning for business kitchens and assist purchasers visualize new ideas earlier than something will get sliced or diced. It’s a device that augments his creativity, he says, and makes prep much less of a grind.
On season two of the Dropbox podcast Working Smarter, Ian talks about how AI helps him and his workforce spend extra time doing what they love: cooking and getting inventive within the kitchen.
You may learn an excerpt of our dialog with Ian beneath.
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What’s your most memorable instance of somebody supplying you with a product or an ingredient, after which it’s important to make a recipe or a dish utilizing it?
We did some issues with Kikkoman at one in every of their conferences referred to as Worlds of Taste. The entire convention was all about fusion. I’ve a Mexican background with my culinary experiences and my meals. So I did a play on takoyaki—however as a substitute it was tacoyaki. As a substitute of octopus we truly did some braised pork cheek and a few pineapple that we compressed with Kikkoman teriyaki glaze. Oh, and the batter was half masa, to offer it that taco taste.
That sounds so tasty. Do you suppose AI may ever provide you with one thing that ingenious?
You realize, I truly really feel like… possibly. Expertise augments human potential, and dealing collectively you possibly can create magic.
I’ve seen you describe the significance of human intelligence when utilizing AI within the kitchen—of with the ability to stability AI with human creativity. As a chef, why is that so essential?
The inventive extent of what AI can do is form of limitless. On the similar time, you realize your prospects higher than AI does—what is going on to promote and what’s not. For those who’re from the Midwest, everyone simply desires ranch dressing, you realize? It would not must be completely wild and loopy on a regular basis. There is a stability between utilizing AI as a device, however not fully counting on it for every little thing.
Your first AI challenge is an effective instance of that. You used it to assist plan these 5 week menu cycles for faculty campuses. That’s 1000’s of various menu gadgets you beforehand needed to provide you with, which may take your workforce on the time the entire summer season. What was the purpose there?
I used to be making an attempt to determine a approach to take a job that might take hours, weeks, probably even months to determine and have AI offer you a roadmap to leap off from inside a pair hours. It saved a lot time. And what that did for me, as Director of Culinary for this group, was it allowed the cooks to only be within the kitchen extra as a substitute of being in an workplace or boardroom with Publish-Its for weeks at a time. Like, this permits them to truly be doing what they’re good at—to prepare dinner good meals, to be hands-on, to be coaching fellow cooks and cooks. To me, if the sort of factor can prevent that a lot time, it is such an enormous win.
What I additionally realized is that you simply’re not likely stifling creativity by having AI platforms aid you develop these 5 week menu cycles—as a result of quite a lot of the concepts that you simply may get from this are stuff that you simply would not have had in your menu cycle [to begin with]. And quite a lot of instances, it will possibly even be inspiring. There’s nothing much less inspiring than being caught in a boardroom for 2 months making an attempt to determine these menus out.
Once you’re pitching a brand new dish to a model or a restaurant chain, how does AI aid you get them on board?
Generally what you are visualizing and what the shopper visualizes are two completely various things. Earlier than you’d must be like, okay, we’re truly gonna make these—we’re gonna go purchasing for the meals, rent a photographer, get a meals stylist—to allow them to truly see it. It could actually take quite a lot of money and time. However what we have discovered with utilizing AI is that you could form of overcome a few of these hurdles a little bit faster. You need to use picture era instruments to get in that ballpark of “that is what we’re pondering that is going to appear to be.” It won’t even sound good on paper, however individuals eat with their eyes. So to have a extremely good visible illustration of what that ultimate product’s most likely going to appear to be is tremendous useful.
Despite the fact that you’re utilizing AI to get to the idea stage faster, photographers and meals stylists are nonetheless an essential a part of your course of when you get that sign-off on a dish. How come?
I feel that you simply nonetheless wish to have that real looking, tangible {photograph} utilizing the proper merchandise—so once they truly put it into motion, it is correct, and the chef is aware of what to do and what it ought to appear to be. Anyone can generate stunning imagery utilizing AI platforms, however not everyone has the data, talent, expertise, and expertise to have the ability to bodily do it in actual life and make meals that’s visually interesting and tastes actually good.
Is that the place the stability between human intelligence and synthetic intelligence comes into play?
Yeah, completely. As a result of the human half additionally comes once you’re tasting it, proper? You might need that recipe 90% there, however that further 10% may make or break it. So once you’re truly making it, you are realizing, like, “Oh yeah, this might use this, or it may use that.” And that is when cooks can pull from that rolodex of taste recollections and simply say, “That is what would go actually good with this to take it that further 10%.”
How else do you see cooks utilizing AI going ahead?
I’d say the applying within the kitchen is once you’re creating efficiencies—looking for developments, elements, possibly shortly ideating specials. I’ve seen individuals that may simply take a listing of elements that they’ve within the walk-in—possibly they’ve some fish they’ve to make use of—they usually’re like, “Man, we’ve obtained to determine this out, we open in like an hour. Here is some elements that we now have available. Let’s provide you with one thing actually fast.” And now you possibly can throw it into ChatGPT or no matter platform and see when you can provide you with a few completely different jumping-off factors. It could actually slender the main target to what you really want.
This interview has been edited and condensed. For extra interviews and previous episodes, go to workingsmarter.ai
