Don Braymer
Orange County Catering Specialist
Restaurants on the Run
By far the biggest food and beverage trend we’ve seen in 2014 is a push for healthier options that still have serious flavor.
This has been spearheaded by dramatic growth in Greek and Mediterranean restaurants locally, as well as by vegan- and vegetarian-focused restaurant choices.
We expect this push to continue into 2015, with both a focus on more varied ethnic options—for instance Thai, Peruvian, Vietnamese, Hawaiian, Korean and Indian food—and a push toward traditional American or continental restaurants to provide healthy chicken, fish and vegetarian choices alongside regular fare.
We also expect to continue to see the rise of barbecue-focused restaurants, especially during the summer.
We see companies consistently wanting their focus to be on their products and clients at the meeting, while not having to deal with catering or the specifics of the food and beverage offering. It’s a little like having an internal catering department without all the organizational effort needed for that.
They want to know they will enjoy a good meal on time, where they’re meeting, and we take care of those needs so they can focus on the work they want to do. They give us their budget, and we handle it from there.
Robert Donahue
Director, Resort & Park Event Sales and Service
Disneyland Resort
Let’s just say the Disneyland Resort is cooking when it comes to food and beverage. We’ve introduced new restaurants and menus across the resort in the last few years, especially tied to the overall expansion of Disney’s California Adventure and the reimagining of the Disneyland Hotel.
Today’s catering trends mirror overall food trends in a lot of ways. With all the network food shows, planner and attendee expectations have increased significantly. This is especially true in California, which is synonymous with great food and wine.
The food has to be great, but it also has to be engaging. We do a lot more action stations than ever before, where attendees can learn firsthand about the specialties that we’re creating for them. Our clients and their attendees are looking to meet and work with our chefs.
Food allergies are also on the radar like never before. We’ve spent a lot of time training our kitchen teams to accommodate dietary restrictions and our banquet cast members to inquire about special needs.
Theming is also really important at Disney. Food is a sensory experience, so we work hard to have it complement the theme of the broader event. That’s true whether it’s a breakfast, lunch or dinner, or for a reception. Food has to be delicious, beautiful, and sometimes easily carried by attendees, but in the best-case scenario it does all that and reinforces the messages and feelings an organization wants to communicate.
Giuseppe Lama
Managing Director
The Resort at Pelican Hill
The biggest trend we saw in 2014 was the desire for a sense of place. Meeting planners sought seasonal menus with locally sourced ingredients to reflect Southern California, Orange County, and even Newport specifically. For our guests, this means fresh Irvine Ranch produce like tomatoes and avocados.
This year, we see new flavors tapping into international spices but fused with Western cuisine, such as sliders with a curry flavor or Vietnamese banh mi sandwiches. Our catering clients also want fewer sodas and more flavored, hand-crafted coolers, tonics, and waters using fresh ingredients.
Third, we see guests maintaining their new mindful habits and special dietary requirements while dining away from home. This will continue to be important for our meetings and events guests in 2015. We’re experiencing growing demand for meals with high protein, fewer carbohydrates, and variety.
Especially for breakfast, lunch and coffee breaks, catering menus focus less on starchy or high-fat foods that leave guests struggling to stay awake during meetings and events. Guests are more interested in sustaining their healthy habits and not indulging just because it’s a special occasion or a business trip.
We offer chef-led, “farm-to-fork” cooking classes with a healthy-living focus for groups. We can also arrange culinary learning opportunities with sommeliers, cheese professors, butchers, olive oil masters, and tequila experts.
We help guests complement their healthful food experiences with optional fitness activities. It helps guests maintain their training and exercise schedule while traveling.
Nancy Monte-Frye
Senior Director of Events
Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach Resort & Spa
We have seen a huge increase this year in special dietary requests, most notably in the gluten-free and paleo diet options. We still also saw many guests seeking locally sourced and/or organic choices. In general, we’re asked for lighter fare during meetings.
In 2015, we see continued expansion in client desire for healthy options; more reception-style events with interactive and tapas/small-plate food items—moving completely away from traditional buffets; and a focus on action—guests want interaction with the chef where they see high-quality food made.
There’s always a drive to push the envelope with guests and expose them to new and exciting food and beverage ideas. Hotels are investing in presentation, equipment and service styles. The key: innovation.
Our philosophy of thoughtfully sourced, carefully served food means a strong focus on hyperlocal ingredients and seasonal menus that ensure peak-of-season quality.
We emphasized enhanced beverage programming—signature wine offerings and hand-crafted, artisan cocktails at banquet bars. Locally, we used our restaurant venues more often for banquet events.
In 2014, Hyatt held its first annual companywide cooking competition—the Good Taste Cooking Series—to inspire continued passion in food and beverage. Hyatt also offers a menu which gives meetings guests a choice of entrees for a more personalized, restaurant-style experience at an event.
Christina Mytinger
Account Director, Catering
St. Regis Monarch Beach
Farm-to-table was big in 2014, with locally sourced and organic ingredients requested throughout the year. Our chef loves to use these ingredients to create whole menus, whether for buffets, plated meals, or passed canapés. We print the source of ingredients on the guest menu card or buffet signs when local and/or organic is a specific request.
Three trends we see for next year are:
• Mash-ups, which are fusion dishes, such as a burger with Asian flavors;
• Alternative ingredients, such as coconut flour or raw sugar. This started as a dietary issue but is becoming popular for health-conscious people generally;
• Contemporary twists on classics, such as grilled cheese sandwiches, or a mashed potato martini station with delicious toppings you can mix in.
The St. Regis is remaking banquet menus and dishes with vegan, gluten-free, locally sourced and organic ingredients rather than waiting for customers to ask and then creating a custom menu each time.
We also started Late Night Snacks for evening events. We offer items such as mini panini, cheesecake lollipops, and homemade chocolate chip cookies with a shot of milk.
For corporate events, we created team-building exercises with food and beverage components. For example, we’ve held “Iron Chef” competitions in which attendees work with one of our chefs to create dishes with a specific main ingredient. The dishes are judged and a winner declared.
Instead of prepackaged candy for meeting breaks, we suggest fresh-made pastries. This satisfies the desire for more natural ingredients and is a more memorable food experience.
Rob Quest
Owner
Sundried Tomato American Bistros & Catering
The biggest trend we saw was in presentation—clean lines, meaning no linens; creative risers; all-white platters; and food offerings spaced so you can see them easily. Additionally, clients asked for fresh, healthy ingredients.
In 2015, we expect to see more of the same: expansion of creative, high-quality products offering good value. In addition, diners want foods that are familiar while still being new, interesting or creative. For example, gourmet pigs in a blanket. Third, people are looking to be wowed. At meetings and conventions, this is accomplished through imaginative entertainment, lighting, interactive and build-your-own food stations, and in other ways.
To meet these desires, companies that serve meetings and conventions are always trying to top one another. Creativity in Orange County is at its highest level. You have to be great to survive and thrive in this market.
At Sundried Tomato, we’re constantly re-evaluating our presentations and offerings. We recently introduced our new corporate menu, and now we’re updating our catering and banquet menus. A professional food photographer will be working with us to capture our products in a new, creative and fun way. Our to-go containers are eco-friendly and more attractive. And because of the increasing need for more community and corporate event venues, we’re opening a new banquet facility, Plaza de Magdalena, in San Juan Capistrano.
Shaun Robinson
General Manager
Hilton Anaheim
While the Hilton Hotels & Resorts brand is recognized worldwide, we’re seeing an uptick this past year in requests at Hilton Anaheim from meeting planners for food and beverage items that are local favorites. Instead of
more generic ingredients, there’s a trend for more California-centric fare, including wines.
Guests want to enjoy the experience of Southern California and Orange County. This includes requesting customized menus that reflect our locally grown fresh fruits, vegetables and other products. To meet these needs at Hilton Anaheim, we are and will continue sourcing more food products locally.
Into 2015, meeting planners will also continue to want balanced menus with healthy choices and a variety of ethnic foods for foreign visitors. Our executive chef will continue his practice of meeting with the hotel’s clients to be sure he designs an exceptional food and beverage experience just for them. This year, we will be opening our Chef’s Kitchen, where our guests can enjoy and even participate in preparing sumptuous dinners and desserts.
Javier Sarmiento
Director of Food & Beverage
DoubleTree by Hilton Irvine Spectrum
Food trends change often, and with meeting planners evermore aware of specific client needs, we saw requests based on meeting themes, location, flavors, and so on that are more specialized than ever. In 2014, one of the more prominent requests has been to offer healthier options.
Examples include planners identifying dietary restrictions for their participants (gluten-free, low-carb), as well as preferred healthy choices for breaks and company events. Today’s popular breakfast and break offerings include energy bars, fiber snacks, steel-cut oatmeal, enhanced water and vitamin-based drinks, smoothies, fresh fruit and nuts.
In 2015, we’re looking for more of the same, as well as increasing requests from planners and clients for more adventurous ethnic foods and fusion of various cuisine types. Our executive chef now prepares more items with rubs, using spices rather than traditional marinades. We’re also going to see more meals with fresh ingredients. Desserts are still a must—but with smaller portions. On the beverage side, classic cocktails will continue their comeback, again, with the adventure element: exotic liquors and fruit flavors.
Our company continuously seeks to serve our client needs and requests with custom menus and unique experiences.
J.D. Shafer
General Manager
Hotel Irvine
The trend with the most impact has been farm-to-table. Our restaurants use local vendors and create menu items from fresh products each week.
We opened three new food and beverage spaces run as independent spaces and with creative license to enable new, different menus for meetings. The hotel creates individualized seasonal dishes, not just trays for mass consumption. We pay attention to how entrees appear on the plate, just as in our restaurant.
We’ve also seen more theming at events. Sometimes that means elaborate sets or meeting specific clients’ needs—Coca-Cola bringing in new vending machines or Bosch showing a line of appliances. The focus is on the company rather than, say, elaborate entertainment. Food then must become part of the theme of that event.
For 2015, we see more open-air, outdoor events in our backyard area—an outdoor ambiance to show visitors they’re really in Southern California. Our research shows people enjoy meeting outdoors, and we call it our backyard to heighten the idea of the hotel being like a home.
A second element involves casual or lounge-type space at meetings. Sometimes that means bringing in sofas and big pillows to relax during a cocktail hour—or even at a banquet at a meeting. A hotel can set up stations that encourage a group to move around a room, to relax and mingle.
Lois Stevens
Director of Food & Beverage
Paul Gregory
Executive Chef
Westin South Coast Plaza
The main trend we’ve seen this year is people wanting to eat healthier and low-fat, and avoid glutens, so we’ve added nutritious choices like kale, quinoa and fresh-made juices and smoothies, which have become popular with our guests.
In 2015, we see more guests seeking quick, informal meal options—grab-and-go type food from lobby-level stores at hotels—as well as guests making healthier food choices and asking more questions about what’s in their food, not just calorie counts but also possible allergens.
On our menus and in food and beverage operations, we’ve expanded our fresh and natural food options; included new vegan and vegetarian offerings; added healthy juices and smoothies; and increased healthful, nutrition- and energy-focused foods.
These adjustments stem from more and more meetings attendees expressing an interest in healthier foods so they can feel better and be more productive on the road. Eating well is really the core of what Westin is trying to do globally to inspire our guests to pursue well-being while here, and beyond. The changes we’ve made are elements of eating that can also work into food preparation, lifestyle and habits for guests after they leave.
Gerard Widder
General Manager
Island Hotel
First, we have seen people moving away from sit-down dinners and seeking healthier, lighter options at meals or snack and break times. Some items we have offered include:
• Build-your-own trail mix, e.g., banana chips, raisins, walnuts, peanuts, dried fruit;
• Yogurt parfaits with granola and fresh fruit;
• Fresh fruit smoothie shooters;
• Vegetables with hummus;
• Iced fruit tea infusions or fruit-infused water;
• Granola and energy bars.
Other elements people want are personalization; interactive food stations; culture-specific menus, such as for Indian or Norwegian cuisine; and farm-to-table food.
People are inside much of the time for meetings. At meals, they want to move around and socialize, so we see more requests coming in 2015 for outside spaces and movement between indoor and outdoor parts of the event.
There will be more interest in “mixology,” so we’re providing many of the same drinks at events that we serve at our Oak Grill or Aqua Lounge, and we plan to add more craft cocktails at private events.
Finally, customers are interested in finding different and unique venues, and we incorporate that into our food and beverage work. A three-day conference could hold an event away from the property with the same chefs and service they’d experience at the hotel—and we help them find those locations and handle all the logistics.
