Food in fashion

Your first impression of London Fashion Week is the sheer beauty. There are beautiful clothes, beautiful hats, loads of beautiful people. So what kind of food do you serve the fashion-conscious and the beautiful?

Does it have to look amazing as well as taste divine? Should it pamper the palate with exquisite decadence? Or are we in danger of over-hyping an industry that does that pretty well itself?

Feeding all the fashionistas, models, journalists and trade that accompany the show into town might seem a daunting task, particularly if the industry is as notoriously precious as everyone says it is. On the face of it, most of us would consider offering Atkins-style diets and lettuce leaves to the waif-like models and immoderate quantities of caviar and Champagne to the rich and famous.

However, Damian Clarkson, the man in the know, says this is way off the mark. His company, Red Snapper Events, has just finished catering for London Fashion Week, which is held at the Duke of York's Headquarters, suitably situated just off London's designer-clad King's Road. It's the second time his firm has run the food operation, and Clarkson (pictured opposite, with lobster) has been drawing heavily on his first experience at the event last September to help him tailor this year's offering.

"Posh food didn't sell at all last year," he says. "What we found was that the trade didn't want smart food and what sold was a fantastic steak sandwich with chips. It's almost opposite to what you would think - you would imagine that they would all want Atkins-style diets."

Clarkson set up Red Snapper Events last April, having had a spell as general manager at Mosimann's Party Service and three years at Rhubarb Food Design. His infant company concentrates on catering for private and corporate parties for London's mega-rich, so running the catering at London's premier fashion show is a bit of a departure from his core market.

It's also a challenging event, which several other caterers and chefs have struggled to make profitable, says Clarkson. There's a long chain of command, and the caterers have to serve many masters. First, it's the British Fashion Council's (BFC) showcase event and is split into two parts. The first half of the week is for the fashion industry, and at the second weekend the doors are thrown open to the general public.

The BFC uses an event partner, Single Market Events, to run fashion week; it in turn subcontracts Rouge Events to look after the logistics and customer service elements of the whole shebang; and Red Snapper Events is employed by Rouge to supply the catering.

This means producing all the food and menus for six retail catering outlets, including the 100-seat Designer restaurant, Swiss Delice Designer Caf‚ (a take-away caf‚), Lavazza Caf‚, two Mo‰t & Chandon bars and a Bite caf‚ strategically placed in the queue for the catwalk shows. He also caters for Top Shop's daily tea party and provides food for the sponsors' lounges.

"We're fourth down the line, so there's a lot of referencing and cross-referencing to be done," Clarkson says. Combined with a long chain of command, Red Snapper has to produce menus and a level of service that meets the needs of the fashion industry, which is renowned for being a bit precious. "There's a lot of egos and, to a certain extent, it's delicate," Clarkson says.

He readily admits that last year he went over the top and overprovided, but all his menu decisions were based on guesswork as there was very little information to go on. With the benefit of hindsight, he believes he has made the event a success. He says the menu in the main restaurant was too complicated last September, and some of the items, which Clarkson thought would be big sellers, flopped spectacularly.

"We made foie gras and chicken liver parfait, but sold only 10 portions of it, so it was a complete waste of money. A lot of what we did in our first fashion week was based on people saying ‘I love this, I love that'. So we made soup. It cost us £1,200 and we sold two portions."

Clarkson says he learnt from the experience and planned a far simpler menu this year. Gone were the foie gras and other items that didn't sell, and in their place were simpler dishes, such as Ashby's Cumberland sausages, double-butter mash and onion gravy; and penne with roasted pumpkin, feta and rocket.

"I consider last year as an investment, so if it didn't sell, it's off the menu," Clarkson says. "We looked at what we did last September and thought that, as we're in winter now, we'd go for simpler, almost comfort food sourced from within the British Isles. I'm trying to turn it on its head and it's slightly tongue-in-cheek." Clarkson adds that he kept some more upmarket items on the menu, such as fillet of organic Irish salmon, served with baby spinach and a chive butter sauce, which was this year's best seller.

While the menu might have changed, did the presentation? Clarkson says it's important to have a bit of theatre, but the emphasis should be on the quality of the food and the ingredients, not the way it looks.

"Some of the private parties we cater for have quite funky decorations, but with London Fashion Week everything has to be totally neutral, very contemporary and very elegant," he says. "There's no room for frills or frippery, as something we might introduce could offend.

"Gone are the days of caterers serving up on quirky car tyres or dustbin lids in an attempt to excuse poorly cooked food. What people demand today is well cooked food presented simply and stylishly with as much emphasis on the ingredients as on the presentation."

But he ensured that presentation remained upmarket and classy, with hand-wrapped sandwiches and salads in specially designed clear boxes. It's the little touches that matter, Clarkson claims.

Clarkson has been developing the menus for this event since last September, so as well as trying to get the offer right, he has also tried to reduce waste and make the event more profitable. He trimmed the menu - there were four starters instead of six, and four desserts and coffee, one fewer than before.

However, while choice might have been reduced, prices stayed at the same level so they could compete against the outlets on the King's Road. "It cost £11 for bangers and mash, so it had to be sensational," he says.

This approach was consistent across the board. In the sandwich outlets Clarkson cut the sandwiches being made fresh on site from eight varieties to five. Likewise, there were three different types of salad against four last year. "Where you get more choice you get more waste," he adds, and this year he was determined to cut waste and make the event more profitable.

He had a team of four chefs and three sandwich makers at the event. The team served about 200 covers a day in the main restaurant, which increased by at least another 50 covers at the weekend when the public were allowed in. Saturday was the busiest day, with up to 250 sitting down for … la carte food at the Designer restaurant.

All this was done from a very small kitchen, although Clarkson persuaded the organisers to make it almost twice as big this year. Other logistical problems added to the headache, such as where his coldstore could be sited - last year he couldn't get it closer than 80 yards away, and his staff had to ferry food back and forwards over trip-risky cables.

So, making the menu simpler and cutting down on choice while maintaining the glitz and the glamour were Clarkson's goals… but he still had to make money out of the event.

"I don't see this as a vanity event - we're not going to lose money on it," he insists. If he does, he says, he'll walk away from the catwalk and concentrate on his own private parties.