The Art of Catering Food, an annual conference presented by Catersource and the International Caterers Association (ICA), was held in Atlanta, Georgia, this year, and our Zilli attendees made the most out of their weekend away.
Bringing You Even Better Events
It’s always our goal to give you the best event experience possible. To consistently bring new trends, ideas and designs to our clients in Wisconsin, we like to reach into our network of outstanding catering contacts and collaborate. This Art of Catering Food conference allows us the perfect opportunity to team up with a huge number of outstanding caterers from around the world and just…well…create!
What Happens at a Catering Conference?
The Art of Catering is a multi-faceted conference, but it is most heavily focused on the culinary side of catering. It is designed to bring together chefs, cooks and owners to learn, share knowledge and network with each other in order to bring great ideas, practices and trends back to each caterer’s home market.
The top chefs from across the country attend this conference, and we sent a couple of of our top culinary folks (and one owner) down to Atlanta to immerse themselves in this awesome culture for several days.
The visit was great for multiple reasons:
- Our chefs sat in on educational seminars and demonstrations—one after another—and came back to Wisconsin with some incredible ideas for your upcoming events.
- We toured different venues around Atlanta, each one designed and set up with a different theme in mind. We have even more ideas from which to pull for your next event theme and its execution.
- Our attendees met with other big chefs, both their peers in catering and new friends in the restaurant business, from across the country. We’ve got to say, while it can be challenging for restaurant chefs to constantly impress, catering chefs sure are impressive when it comes to cooking for hundreds of people. It’s just another reason why we’re proud to do what we do.
- We also came back with unique storing, design and equipment ideas—all of which will allow us to better our efficiencies and offerings for you. You know those “a-ha!” moments we all love so much? Yep, we came back with several that you’re going to love because our “a-ha” moments lead to better executed parties for our clients!
What’s the Best Part about the Art of Catering Conference?
Our favorite part about this conference is the same year after year. We love seeing our catering friends from around the world come here and share their ideas with others. Wisconsin is a small market when you think about all of the big cities in the world, and the international collaboration in which we’re invited to participate never ceases to leave us with a hundred new ideas to try back home.
A special mention and hello to our friend and chef from New Zealand, Sue Fleischl of Great Catering!
The One Thing That Will Change Your Events
One of the most interesting things we experienced at the conference was the unique way in which some of the events were created. One private dinner perfectly displayed cutting edge foods from around the country, not only through unique menu items or rare ways of displaying the food, but also by showing us how to build an entire theme around the menu. The takeaways, for us, went as far as setting up the building concept for visitors and creating themes around those factors. Some of the biggest collaboration happened right here, at this phase in the conference, and we can’t wait to translate what we learned to our clients’ events.
Want a look inside the conference? Here are some of the most unique moments at The Art of Catering Food 2014:
Creative event theme inspiration!
The “art” of catering food taken in a more literal sense.
Serving guests with famous art is certainly a unique and inspiring way to theme an event.
