Life of the party
Premier Cuisine started trading in April as an outside event caterer for the Newcastle-upon-Tyne area. After a slow start, business is now picking up, with orders for buffets coming in from the Tyneside Training and Enterprise Council, Price Waterhouse, Standard Life and other local companies. Keith McDonald is developing new recipe ideas to replace the more traditional elements of buffet fare.
The buzz of party atmosphere at the Vineyard wine bar, Newcastle, is just what Bruce Halliday, area manager of Standard Life, wants. Disco sounds alternate with quiet music from a duo called the Jazz Dragons; people's voices are a blend of humorous socialising and business networking.
This afternoon, while Keith McDonald was putting the finishing touches to this evening's buffet, Dennis Blades was out buying him a smart new outfit, which McDonald has now donned in exchange for his working whites: white jacket, black trousers, white shirt and black bow tie - total outlay, £100. McDonald is working this evening, not in his kitchen, but front of house, mingling with guests.
Halliday's agenda is to remind the personal finance advisers they should use Standard Life when they are putting together packages for their clients.
He could have taken them to the races, or on a golf day, but those outings don't appeal to everyone. Either option would also have cost considerably more than the £1,000 or so which Standard Life is spending on this party for about 50 people, so Halliday is achieving value for money. Premier is providing the food, and the Vineyard is handling the wine side.
McDonald's agenda is to put himself about among these valuable contacts, and he does that with considerable success. By the end of the evening he has picked up five "sales leads" to follow up, mainly people interested in using Premier Cuisine for private parties. Perhaps the most exciting is from a man who has rented a house in London's Mayfair for the weekend, and wants McDonald to feed his guests.
Seven hours or so earlier, at Premier's offices-cum-production kitchen, McDonald had started the afternoon with food production almost complete. "The chicken and duck galantine and the salmon and sole roulade were done yesterday and chilled overnight," he says. "Everything else has been prepared this morning. Now we just need to get flatted up."
McDonald sets to work transferring the dishes he's made earlier from the refrigeration trays to service flats. First he slices into portions the galantine, the roulade and a "Wellington" with a difference - not beef, but prawn, asparagus and pimento Wellington. Each slice of this, in its pastry case, makes about two mouthfuls.
McDonald carefully fills the pastry cases for the canapés with various pastes and other fillings - smoked salmon, prawn, a whole quail's egg laid on a little dollop of mayonnaise. He transfers them delicately to service flats, starting at the edge and spiralling inwards.
Proceeding from dish to dish (there are about a dozen items on the menu), McDonald works steadily. A spectacular dish appears: parcels of mussels wrapped in bacon, and decorated with whole langoustines. Contrasting with this is a tray of tiny fruit tartlets, sparkling with apricot glaze and a light dusting of sugar.
Blades reappears from his shopping, in time to help move the completed flats on to racks for transport to the venue. By 4.30pm, an hour before the party is due to start, McDonald, Blades and all the food are on their way.
By 5pm, the buffet is all on display, but concealed by a muslin curtain, which Blades bought this afternoon; the Vineyard's barman is polishing glasses.
At 5.20pm, two young women arrive from a modelling agency to work as waitresses for the party; McDonald has disappeared to change out of his working whites; Blades is still buzzing around in jogging pants and sweater; Champagne flutes are being decorated with strawberries and strawberry liqueur is poured into them, for fraise royale; and the Jazz Dragons strike up with Gershwin's Summertime.
By 5.45pm, a dozen guests have arrived, the atmosphere is warming up, and so are the chicken and prawn dishes, which McDonald has taken down to the Vineyard's kitchen. Blades has reappeared smartly dressed in a lounge suit, ready to do his share of networking.
By 6.30, dead on time, the buffet is ready for service, and by about 9pm it's almost totally demolished.
After the event, McDonald scores himself "seven out of 10" for the buffet. Blades is keen to hold a post-mortem, and believes McDonald needs to think more laterally about what goes on menus. Some dishes, such as the chicken and duck galantine, are perhaps a little difficult to handle for a fork buffet.
There are a growing number of events like this one coming on to Premier's books. This weekend (29 September), businessman Chris Thompson is celebrating his 40th birthday with a party at his company, Express Engineering, and Premier is laying on the food for about 300 people.
On 26 October, Price Waterhouse is holding a family day for about 130 people, more than half of whom are children. Premier is laying on two menus for that party - one for adults, one for children.
Premier has quoted for a promotional party for about 600 at Eldon Garden, a section of the Eldon Square shopping centre. The event will attract the "great and good" of Newcastle and will include a Champagne reception and fashion show.
Each event Premier caters for is another step in the growth of the company, and each one provides new contacts, new potential clients. Each one is also tying up McDonald and Blades for about three days, and they will probably soon take on an office assistant to take some of the administrative load.
McDonald and his assistant, Chris Coyle, have been to three one-day sessions at a local college to update their food hygiene knowledge, and to get a certificate, equivalent to NVQ level 3. "It was easy, mostly common sense, but I hadn't done it formally before," says McDonald. "These days, people won't bring you business unless they know you're trained in food hygiene."
Inquiries about the mountain bike rally which Premier has been helping to organise were promising, but actual bookings were late coming in. The event happened last weekend (20-22 September), and will be reported on next month.
Next visit to Premier Cuisine: 24 October
