In our opinion food is often an underrated part of the wedding day when it comes to planning. Often couples think that the dress or the venue will be what guests remember most but are surprised to find that it is actually the menu! This is because memories and great conversations are often created and around the table during the wedding breakfast. One Great George Street definitely have a great understanding of this. From Canapés to desserts, they have a total of 86 options to consider! Gabrielle from the gorgeous Greater London venue talks us through their menu tasting experience. But we must warn you, do not read this on an empty stomach!
Good food can be an amazing experience when shared with friends and family. Is your wedding menu something you pride yourself on?
Food for me is one of life’s greatest pleasures; I love it and love the social aspect of dining with others. This is why our team works so well together! The upshot of this results in a great deal of thought going into creating a broad and well-balanced wedding menu.
The team here recognise that food forms a significant element of any wedding day and this is one feature that our guests will remember. We are so proud of our catering products and services that we always hold a menu tasting with the couples and sometimes their families. During this time they are able to try four or five dishes they have selected from our menus and decide what they like and also if they would like to make any adjustments to the dishes. We also deal with all special diets and when necessary create a separate meal as close to the main menu as allows. At a recent wedding, the groom’s mother had serious allergy issues but by tweaking the style of the potatoes and using tofu with the dessert and a few other different accompaniments and ingredients, what was presented to her looked very close to what the other guests were served. At the tasting our couples will also sample and choose the complementing wines from our wine list. Needless to say this tasting has been known to take a number of hours!
What type of options do you have for weddings (breakfast menu, dinner menu etc)?
Our wedding menus are extremely varied; we make sure we take into account seasonality (our menus are written on an annual basis) as well as differing preferences, cultures and dietary requirements. The menus include 38 canapé options, 17 starters, 18 main courses and 13 desserts. Included in this is a wide variety of vegetarian dishes as well as dairy free and gluten free options.
We are able to create fusion style dishes and have in the past worked with the couples and their families to design authentic bespoke menus from differing cultures including Persian, Jewish, Greek, Indian and Chinese.
What tip would you give to a couple trying to pick options to appeal to a wide range of people?
I think I go against the norm when advising my couples about choosing their menu. I suggest that they choose a menu that they like and one that reflects them as a couple. It is after all their wedding day; no matter how hard you try you are never going to be able to please everyone. Guests can always go for the vegetarian option if they do not like the menu selection. I once had a couple who although were both meat eaters, were so impressed with our vegetarian options that they ended up choosing a vegetarian starter and main course. Having said this, it is also important that the range of guests invited are taken into account. Obviously if your attendance list includes a large number of Jewish or Muslim guests, it would be unwise to choose dishes such as melon and Parma ham or other pork products.
What is your favourite dessert item from the menu?
Wow this is a tough decision to make as I love them all! However if I have to narrow it down the best I can do is select my top three (one is simply too hard to determine). So, in no particular order:
- Baked chocolate fondant served with ice cream
- Tart Tatin with caramelized apple, crème Anglaise
- Black cherry and chocolate Pavlova with crème Chantilly
Do you cater to menu options seasonally?
As the menu is so large we change our menus once a year to be published every January. The renewal process is very important to us, as it allows us to keep up with current trends, try new things and keep up-to-date with any changes in legal notification and supplier relations.
In order to make the process as easy and informed as possible we ask our sales, events and catering teams to collect feedback from our clients, each other and also to monitor our competitors. This information is then sent over to our Executive Chef and his team who work hard to refresh our menus accordingly. The entire process involves a lot of experimenting, which I love as occasionally we get sent new sample dishes to try – these never last long in our office!
You can see our current menu but do watch out as our 2015 one is being created now. More work has gone into our menus for next year as from December 13th 2014 a new legislation comes into force concerning the labelling of all unpackaged foods. From this date all food outlets must be able to say if any of their dishes contain allergens…. Please check our chef’s blog to find out more about the subject.
