Banishing the Buffet

Buffet. The word itself sounds boring. Beige.

Heralding from less than appetising foundations: the crusty sandwich, the soggy quiche and the divider of people: cheese and pineapple sticks.

Now don’t get me wrong, I LOVE a good sandwich, fresh crusty sourdough stuffed with fragrant pesto, sweet sun-dried tomatoes, creamy mayo and succulent chicken (hopefully my over-use of adjectives here has re-affirmed my love of a good sandwich). Never have I ever seen a good sandwich at a buffet table. The “all you can eat” has plunged the buffet into deeper depths.

<This is the point where I should put a picture in showing a terrible buffet, but I just can’t bring myself to either shame someone else’s hard work or put a picture up that you might glaze over and misinterpret as our work. So I’ll just write this instead>

We need to turn this around. The content of the buffet might not be worth saving, but the concept is something worth holding onto. Tables laden with inviting, delectable and, dare I say it, nourishing food. Feasts to draw in guests who can laden their plates with all the food that they wish for. Then pass up on the parts that don’t take their fancy. It works.

<The facial expression we’re going for with our non-buffet buffet>

So let’s start with a re-name. “Buffet” has too much of a bad rep for itself, deeply ingrained memories of what is quite simply, not good food. I’ve got two candidates: festival-style or grazing-table. Here’s hoping that you’re forgiving and will allow the hyphenation to make these count as single words…

Festival-style appeals because it involved the theatre of the food being made behind the serving table. When we have the wood fires going and the salads and sides are prepared before you, it becomes a spectacle of food. But it doesn’t really encapsulate the worthy table inside, free of fuss, leaving the food to stand alone and be celebrated for what it is. The grazing-table does this.

Compromise time, because we’re all used to compromise, right?! Let’s call the outside buffet “festival style” and the inside buffet “grazing table”.

If I’ve managed to convince you that a festival style buffet is the food style you want to go for at your event, be it a corporate gathering, birthday, anniversary or wedding, then you can see our offerings here: Festival Style Menu.