What was the event? Caterer Create Food and Party Design’s eighth annual London venues dinner at the Natural History Museum. Representatives from venues across the capital including, Madame Tussauds, St Paul’s Cathedral and Battersea Power Station were invited to enjoy an evening of fine food and wine. This year’s dinner also celebrated ten years of the Create brand, so prior to the event guests were asked to name their favourite dessert of the past ten years.
How was the brief met? Venue listings and relationships are a vital part of Create’s sales process – with more than 80% of all of Create’s business taking place in listed venues – so in 2003 it came up with the concept of hosting an annual dinner to thank venues for their support and educate them on Create’s current menu trends.
Guests entered through the museum’s main hall to the sounds of an acoustic guitarist. A drinks and canapé reception was held in the Tree Gallery, with waiters serving anchovy bread sticks and leek and potato soup with sautéed morels in shot glasses.
At 8pm guests were ushered through to the Darwin Centre, where a 50m long dining table had been laid, stretching the full length of the building and brimming with seasonal flowers in Create’s signature green and white brand colours. Event partners Wise Productions projected an animated butterfly motif on to the side of the Cocoon.
The dinner comprised of an amuse of semolina pasta filled with ceps and wild garlic, a starter of scallops, samphire and horseradish, and a main of Sussex lamb with dauphinoise potatoes and vegetables. In between courses speeches were made by Create managing director Richard Groves, Wise Productions managing director David Wise, Natural History Museum head of events and catering Zoe Watts, and sports events consultant Jon Tibbs.
The evening was rounded off in the museum’s Gallery 20, which had been transformed into a dessert and coffee bar, serving guest’s favourite desserts from the past ten years including bread and butter pudding, cheesecake with a choice of toppings and customised knickerbocker glories.
Suppliers
Natural History Museum
020 7942 5434
Lola
020 8944 4960
Wise Productions
020 8743 1122
Mary Jane Vaughan
0207 385 8400
Revelstoke
0208 545 0077
Great Hire
020 8965 5005
Full Circle
(0) 845 31 31 666
Julie Bourner Photography
01926 888440