Serve Internationally While Never Leaving Chicago

Chicago is increasingly a cosmopolitan city with international flair, and you can easily bring the world to your holiday entertaining. Here’s a brief introduction to various styles of service from around the world:

• American service in which the food is plated in the kitchen and served to each individual guest.
• English service has been used and was traditionally inspired by holiday meals in country homes where the host carved the meat for each guest, but has evolved into a server presenting and serving a platter of food to each individual.
• Russian service involves bringing the food from the kitchen and finishing it at the table.
• French service, often associated with fine dining, utilizes shared plates that are either passed by a server or placed at the center of the table.

I suggest a hybrid style of service combining multiple service techniques offering guests a truly one-of-a-kind dining experience. For example, I may serve guests a plated Amuse Bouche or salad in the American style as they are seated. This might be followed by trays of meat and fish, presented to each guest in the English style. Serving trays of vegetables and starches might by placed on each table, to be shared in the French style. Next, I might follow with a traditional French cheese course by placing fruit and cheese at each table to be shared. For dessert, I might serve a Bananas Foster that is finished at the table in a grand display in the Russian style. I like to call this unique way to keep guests engaged with and interested in the fine cuisine being offered: “One World Service.”

Happy Holidays…and please pass the salt!

More About Entertaining Company:
Wendy Pashman is an entertaining industry expert specializing in global cuisine. In 1990, she founded Entertaining Company and now caters to a clientele that ranges from Fortune 100 companies to the city’s premiere social events. Whether it’s an event that highlights the colors and flavors of a specific culture or region of the world, Entertaining Company applies the knowledge and inspiration their team has gathered from travel to exotic locales, local markets, city streets, world music, Bollywood movies, European travel and explorations into Chicago’s ethnic neighborhoods. Playing with the elements of color, texture, taste and spice, the company creates an artisanal experience in a processed world.
www.entertainingcompany.com