Olive oil can be turned into the core of a tasty dining experience (pictured) at the Four Seasons Hotel Las Vegas
Food is entertainment. Just browse Instagram or Facebook for proof that nicely plated food is a shootable, sharable part of our lives. As such, shouldn't it be the highlight of every meeting? After all, food is the experience that touches all five senses, and helps everyone remember the event, the message, and the people.
At gaming destinations, catering professionals, executive chefs, sommeliers, and their teams are present in abundance to lend their talents. And at many Las Vegas resorts, food-themed demonstrations and tastings are offered to the public, so if you have a small group and no time to plan your own F&B-themed activity, take advantage of a ready-made opportunity, like "Booze & Bites" at the Monte Carlo, an interactive five-course dinner that incorporates unusual spirits, wines, or brews.
To create your own sit-down meal, a buffet, or catered event that's memorable and fun, incorporate a theme that's well carried out, or design an event that says "VIP." Include interactivity, eye appeal, unique tastes, teambuilding, or an educational component. Here we offer a few great examples.
Food for a Theme
For 10 years, Howard Perlow has been throwing a party for the Maryland Real Estate Convention in Las Vegas every May. He always holds it at a Wynn property, this year using the Encore Beach Club. ("Steve Wynn started out in Maryland with bingo halls," says Perlow, who is based in Owings Mills, MD.) The party, which lasts through the dinner hour, 6-10 p.m., features "very heavy hors d'oeuvres." For 1,500 to 1,600 people, the catering order enumerates more than 25,500 tasty morsels.
Mardi Gras was the theme, carried out with masks and beads and music -- a 15-piece jazz band parading through the pool area, followed by stilt walkers and people in big-head costumes. And of course, the food was New Orleans-inspired, passed by waitstaff and displayed on service tables set in locations around the pool.
Hors d'oeuvres included Cajun corn fritters with romesco sauce, crab and shrimp etouffee in demitasse cups, and fried shrimp on skewers with Cajun remoulade dipping sauce. Guests enjoyed a six-foot-long shrimp and oyster po' boy sandwich, blackened baby lamb chops with spicy Cajun sauce, and mini Cajun crabcake sliders. They visited a raw bar display, a jambalaya station, and tried Cajun tri-tip beef sliders with spicy mayonnaise sauce and sweet Vidalia onion. Dessert, served by butlers, included beignets with a warm chocolate dipping sauce and Mardi Gras king cakes decorated with colored beads and baked with the traditional plastic babies inside.
The party concluded with a fireworks display. The theme relied on a multitude of details ("a lot of planning, a lot of checklists," says Perlow), but the menu that the catering team at the Wynn Las Vegas came up with absolutely carried the evening.
VIP Event
With a small group that you would like to make feel special, the F&B professionals at the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City recently did a wine-and-food tasting for 20 VIPs at a pre-reception. The wines, all from California, were chosen by Borgata's wine manager Laura Turrene, who introduced the five selections and discussed the tasting notes for each. Food pairings were made by Borgata's executive chef Tom Biglan. A couple of examples: A Schramsberg Blanc de Blanc was served with a smoked chicken profiterole along with Cypress Grove's Purple Haze chevre. A Sonoma Cutrer Russian River Ranches wine was complemented with grilled scallop "ceviche" and Point Reyes Farmstead Original Blue cheese.
Harley Carbery, director of wine at the Mandalay Bay, suggests a VIP event where a winemaker from a California vineyard hosts a tasting and an interactive question-and-answer session that scores high for memorability.
At the Bellagio Buffet in Las Vegas, the hotel offers an Executive Chef's Table as a private VIP experience within the buffet. For a group of eight to 24, this could be done with a customized menu, says Executive Chef Edmund Wong. For instance, a farmer's market salad could be prepared tableside and rotisserie meats carved at the table. For dessert, a chocolate fondue could be presented. The group would be able to choose from all the buffet options as well, but "these are elevated dishes that aren't found on the regular buffet," says Wong, "so they get the opportunity to talk with the chef and they're being served by the chef."
Best Practices
When working with the talented F&B teams at resorts in gaming destinations, follow these suggested guidelines:
• You will likely have an idea of what you want. Share that, but don't be stuck on it. "We're here to provide an ultimate guest experience," says Chef Edmund Wong of MGM Resorts. "It definitely helps if the planner has an open mind. There are always so many great ideas, which makes it fun. But operationally, we're seeing multiple events, and we try to guide the clients to make sure they are going to have the best experience."
• Disclose your budget up front. "We will maximize the budget to our best ability," says Dana Lamberski, CMP, CMM, convention services manager for Mohegan Sun. "When they give us that information and let us run with it, they get a better experience than anyone else."
• At the pre-planning meeting, the connection between your goals and the F&B can and should be discussed, says Brandon Berger, executive director of catering and banquets for Wynn Las Vegas.
• Describe your group and its demographics. This will help the F&B team in designing menus and activities.
• Talk to the F&B team as early in the planning as you can. Mohegan's Convention Services Manager Nancy Dorman, CMP, says, "When you're doing things on the fly, sure we can come up with an idea but the fun is in having a little bit of time to massage it in your little gray cells, to think of things that you could do, because as much as the client wants to have something fun and interesting and new, we do, too."
Interactive Fun
Become Your Own Bartender is the name of an F&B event that Wynn Las Vegas created in response to meeting planners' desire for more interactivity. For this event, says Brandon Berger, executive director of catering and banquets, five attendees are directed behind a bar and given a recipe. They compete against other teams of five at bars located all around the room to mix a drink properly, following a particular recipe. They then move on to the next station and make the next recipe. "They are graded by our team on how well they make the drink, whether it is done neatly and professionally; and on the taste and flavor," says Berger. "It's very engaging for the client and creates a team environment."
Harley Carbery
director of wine at Mandalay Bay
A beer-versus-wine pairing dinner is a Mandalay Bay event where Carbery, the sommelier, and a colleague who represents the delights of beer, banter back and forth, highlighting what they think works best with various foods. "We've done dinners based on the beverage and then gone backwards and made the menu to go with that, and we've done it the other way around," Carbery says. Taking votes throughout the meal -- voice votes, which get louder as the meal goes on and more "tastes" are swallowed -- makes this an interactive event.
Give Them Eye Appeal
When McDonald's did a corporate meeting at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, CT, the pastry department created a dessert that would impress the attendees: It looked exactly like a fast-food burger, but used pound cake for the bun, with a sprinkling of sesame seeds on top; chocolate mousse for the patty; yellow rolled fondant for the cheese; green butter-cream icing for the lettuce; and raspberry sauce for ketchup. The "Big Mac" was served with a side of fries: churros in a sugar-paper fry box with the McDonald's logo reproduced on the front.
Mohegan Sun has also done risotto martini stations, with different types of risotto that guests can choose different toppings, such as sautéed shrimp or short rib ragu or a vegetarian topping, says Richard Doucette, executive chef, food and beverage. These are served in martini glasses, which are the very definition of eye appeal, no matter what's in them.
Unique Tastes
A spousal group recently did an olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette tasting event at the Four Seasons Hotel Las Vegas. The catering team paired vinegar or olive oil or both with all the foods and beverages served, and did it on an unusual schedule -- beginning at a coffee break and then returning for a buffet lunch. In between, there was a presentation where the executive chef introduced the group to the flavors of three olive oils and three vinegars. The guests took tasting cups and sampled them. Fresh apple slices were used to cleanse their palates.
At the coffee break, there was sparkling fruit with maple granola streusel sprinkled with a winter ambrosia vinegar; a blood orange muffin with blood orange olive oil; and wild hibiscus royale flavored with Champagne mimosa vinegar, served in Champagne glasses. At lunch, the group enjoyed roasted heirloom beets and baby frisee salad along with goat cheese and spicy candied pecans, tossed with blood orange vinaigrette; a Campari tomato caprese salad with burrata cheese, sprinkled with Hawaiian black salt and drizzled with sweet basil olive oil; red quinoa and chickpea salad with tossed smoked olive oil; goat cheese cheesecake drizzled with aged balsamic vinegar; and fresh whole strawberries drizzled with balsamic vinegar.
The idea for this tasting came from the catering manager and executive chef. "The client said we'd like to do something unique and so we came up with these different concepts," says Gus Tejeda, director of marketing for Four Seasons Resorts Las Vegas.
Celebrity Secrets
Celebrity chefs are well represented in both Atlantic City and Las Vegas. Though their schedules are not predictable enough to guarantee an appearance by a particular top chef at your event, a meet-and-greet (and a chance to eat the chef's creations) is nevertheless something you might arrange. At the Four Seasons Hotel Las Vegas (part of the Mandalay Bay complex), catering can call on the talents of eight celebrity chefs (Charlie Palmer and Wolfgang Puck, and the Two Hot Tamales -- Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger -- among them). At the Borgata, there's Puck as well as Bobby Flay, Geoffrey Zakarian, Michael Schulson, and the former White House pastry chef, Thaddeus DuBois.
F&B and Teambuilding
Food can be a part of a formal teambuilding program, as Mohegan Sun has done with cake decorating. Nancy Dorman, CMP, convention services manager, explains, "It can go a number of different ways, depending upon how the client needs to facilitate the teambuilding and what they need to get out of it."
Berger, of Wynn Las Vegas, says, "We just wrapped up a convention for a client whose goal was to build community. They were looking to have everyone feel like part of the family. Instead of using round tables, we set the ballroom with 18 to 24 people at a long, rectangular table, and instead of a plated, served meal, everything was served family-style."
The client, Hans Lupold, special events manager for Mercedes-Benz, USA, based in Montvale, NJ, says the event was a national dealer meeting, with 1,040 dealers from all over the United States. "When the guests came in, the tables were set with seafood towers and breads to start. Then the waitstaff came out with three or four different types of salads on platters, meant for six to eight people," he says. "It became almost like a teambuilding event in that if you sit with someone you don't know, but you share food with each other and you pass the platter, it's just really engaging, and people love it."
Though the meal was served family-style, don't assume the Latour ballroom décor featured French Country plank tables. "At Mercedes-Benz, we're all about modern luxury," says Lupold. So the design was simple and elegant, with lots of lighting, both uplighting and from the ceiling. Floral arrangements in crystal vases used shorter dark-purple calla lilies, placed low enough that people could see over them. Other elements included light-colored linens and gold chairs.
Add an Educational Component
Bellagio Las Vegas offers a Culinary Classroom to the public and can customize it for small meeting groups. "We would guide the meeting planner to what would best work. We'd create a sort of template that would give the guests enough interaction and they would have a relaxed experience," says Chef Wong.
Even if your time doesn't allow for a formal educational program amidst F&B, you can, for example, request that the sommelier be at the dinner to explain wine choices. "I would talk about why I paired that wine with the dish and the different flavors and nuances that I get from it and see if the guests get the same tastes and flavors and experience that I do," says Carbery of Mandalay Bay.
When you are creating the program for you next meeting, give F&B the importance it deserves and your attendees will remember the event long after they've gone back to their regular routines.
Questions or comments? Email [email protected]
This article appears in the August 2015 issue of Successful Meetings.