We believe that summer parties are a key part of every corporate social calendar and offer a chance for your employees to relax and enjoy time getting to know each other. Here at The Brewery, we work hard to ensure that your corporate summer event is as amazing as can be with incredible food for everyone to enjoy.

We spoke to Stephen, Head of Food, who uses his over 30 years of experience in the hospitality industry to develop fantastic summer dishes. Having travelled around the world, including Australia, the Netherlands, France, and Thailand, Stephen works hard with the rest of the team to offer our clients unique menus that are packed full of flavour. Read on to learn more about how The Brewery creates its menus for your next summer party.

What is your favourite summer dish?

From this year’s summer menu, I would definitely say that the summer pea and quinoa tartare. It’s a wonderful mix of everything; colour, taste, and texture. It’s also suitable for most people to enjoy as it’s free from 14 allergens as well as being vegan so it makes the perfect dish for a large group of people.

Did I also mention it’s delicious and a great dish for summer? The mix of fresh radishes, peas, quinoa, an onion consummate gel, lemon pickled onions, pea shoots and tempura enoki mushroom, topped with viola flowers makes it an incredible summer dish. Plus, where possible, we source all our ingredients from local suppliers, not only keeping the air miles down but allowing us to work with local businesses to find the freshest seasonal food. Although not always possible, we believe it’s important to source ingredients locally.

How do you choose what ingredients to use for summer parties?

There are several things we consider before choosing what ingredients we should use at summer parties including:

• Past popular dishes. These can be an excellent guide to the type of food our clients are after and what has also been popular amongst the guests.
• On both social media and from other event spaces, we’ll consider what trends seem to be popular and what is being asked for by our clients.
• As mentioned, we like to source our ingredients from local suppliers and when the food is at its freshest so we’ll consider the seasonality before creating a new dish.

For summer parties, what style of menu do you recommend?

From my experience, a dish that is bite-size and can easily be carried at the same time as a drink is best! When guests are outside enjoying the courtyard on a sunny day, having something small that is packed full of flavour is generally the best option. That’s why, for our summer party menu, everything is easy to eat and has options for all dietary requirements! We have a mix of salads, burgers, skewers and desserts including a mouth-watering smashed beef brisket cheeseburger, delicious grilled halloumi and roasted red pepper skewers and a creamy Biscofff ice cream -  a bit of something for everyone!

We have provided a bowl-style menu before but what is really popular and we love doing is live food stations. Not ideal for big groups but perfect for smaller corporate events (say up to 200 people), our live stations allow guests to interact with the chefs as they create the food, such as for BBQs. These interactive stations also allow our team of chefs to be creative and create a wonderful bespoke menu for a summer event.

Can you cater towards a themed summer party?

Yes! We have much experience catering themed summer corporate parties. For example, we recently organised a beer hall-themed event where all the food was served on large wooden platters and centred around smoked meats, cheese and salads. We even created pretzels using German ingredients!

We were also fortunate recently to cater for the new New Zealand Prime Minister and, although not a summer event, we created bespoke canapés focussed around New Zealand food and flavours. It’s great fun to be able to be creative and make something that’s not only bespoke and themed but also still tastes amazing.

How does The Brewery cater for dietary requirements?

It depends on the type of menu but we always try to have plenty of options that can cater for any dietary requirement. For example, for a dinner menu, we could have up to six choices; one vegetarian, one vegan and one dietary dish that’s not only vegan but free from 14 common allergens such as dairy, gluten, peanut and egg. We have a similar approach to our summer party menu which has a courgette, pea, mint and spinach salad that is vegan and free from all 14 common allergens. It’s beautifully fresh and perfect for a summer’s day. We also have a vegan smashed plant ‘cheeseburger’ as an alternative option to the smashed beef brisket cheeseburger so everyone can try similar foods and won’t miss out.  Sometimes we have additional special requests like someone needing a dish without mushrooms and we will tailor any of our dishes to avoid mushrooms.

Our main focus for our free-from dishes is that they are a solid option on their own and anyone will look at them and want them. They shouldn’t be plain and instead should offer great flavour and maybe a good kick of heat. It takes a lot of planning but we try our best to offer everyone a great meal, no matter their dietary requirements.

What are your top tips for food for those planning a corporate summer party?

There are a few tips I would offer:

1. Try to use ingredients that are in season as they provide the best flavour.
2. Choose a varied menu that caters to most people as this avoids having too many separate menus for individuals and makes serving to a group much easier.
3. Ensure your chosen dishes are packed full of flavour and offer a punch.
4. As people want to be able to hold their drink at the same time as eating at a relaxed summer party, ensure your food choices are less messy and bite-size, such as using canapés.
5. Be well prepared! Consider that all your guests are going to arrive and want to eat food together without having to wait for ages. Discuss with your venue the best way to do this and ensure everyone is happy.

If you’re looking to host a corporate summer party and love the sound of how our experienced team of chefs work, look no further than The Brewery. We’re committed to delivering an exceptional experience and can help you every step of the way to create a wonderful summer event with amazing food. Contact us today to learn more about what we can offer this summer.

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