The Art of Dynamic Menus & Interactive Guest Experiences
If you google “Menu planning” you will either find menus for daily/weekly home meals or companies that will do your menu planning as part of the event that you have hired them to do for a very hefty fee.
But what about if you want to have a creative intimate dinner with few friends. So far, my website is the only one I have found that actually talks about what to include in your menu and different styles of dining including, seated service, family-style dinning, buffet service, and cocktail reception with tray pass bites.
Dynamic menus featuring different "styles of service" creates an exciting and interactive event that will long be remembered by your guests.
Once you have got the basic menu planning down as to the style and different courses, then you can get creative with both. To make your intimate dinner with family and friends, why not mix serving styles. For years I followed my own rules of either by focusing on a single type of service such as seated service, buffet reception or simple cocktail receptions. But then I was bored and there was nothing new to delight and surprise my guests. Even a fabulous dinner can get boring as you move from course to course following the same old structure.
Now my event planning extends beyond just being creative with each course on the menu to ways I can involve my guests in an exciting journey. I might begin with tray passed “Savory Bites” followed by seated service for individually plated “Starters”, then present Entrees and Side Dishes buffet-style where my guest serve themselves. This creates an evening where dinner guests are moving, mingling and experiencing something unexpected instead of sitting through the evening waiting for food to come to them and only interacting with those seated closest to them.
The idea of menu planning is not only to have a structure for the dishes you want to serve but also be creative how to serve your guests.
Remember, Plan – improvise – be creative.
