Hello everyone! We have so much to be excited about at the moment – we’re right in the middle of one of our busiest periods so far, and this week we took part in a fantastic corporate catering project that was 6 months in the making.
At the end of last year we were approached by a company called GardX, who are a big name in the motor industry and had booked one of the biggest stands at CDX 2018, the UK’s largest automotive exhibition, taking place at Manchester Central. They were looking for a caterer for their stand and had plans to build a pop-up Italian restaurant around our beautiful Vanstaurant. We jumped at the chance.
The brief was to provide a breakfast buffet, followed by a selection of pasta, pizza and desserts for lunch. As plans for the event unfolded, we realised that an extra pair of hands was what we needed to make this truly special. We asked Giordano’s dad, who as you may know by now is a chef with almost 50 years of experience, to come on board with us for the two days. He had some great ideas for our brief, including the perfect dishes for our breakfast buffet.
When we arrived at Manchester Central on set-up day, we got to watch as they started to construct a little Italian restaurant around our food truck. It was so exciting to see it all coming together!
Preparations for the exhibition went on long into the evening, so we left on Sunday afternoon without seeing the finished stand. We were overjoyed when we came back the following day and discovered that it looked like this!
Our breakfast buffet consisted of mini brioches, sandwiches, juice, fruit, quiches and a delicious apple tart.
GardX also asked if we had a way to serve tea and coffee throughout the day as they received potential new clients. They were in luck – in the last few weeks we’ve taken delivery of a new professional coffee machine from Caffè del Caravaggio, meaning we can serve a range of espresso, americano and cappuccino coffees. In the end our little machine had to work even harder than we did, serving up around 250 coffees over 2 days!
For lunch, we served up pizza slices and three of our most popular pasta dishes – spinach gemelli with cherry tomatoes, basil and pangrattato breadcrumbs, smoked tomato sedanini with roasted chicken “alla cacciatora” cooked in Chianti wine, and rainbow fusilli with spicy tomato sauce and smoked pancetta.
Finally, we also treated GardX and their clients to some of our famous tiramisù, giving them the choice of classic coffee or raspberry and gin.
At the end of the exhibition, we were among the first to be thanked by the boss of GardX, who has already said he wants exactly the same setup next year. The final day was also Giordano’s dad’s birthday, so we made sure everyone from GardX knew – he deserved to be made a fuss of after all his help!
We have several other big projects lined up already, including weddings, parties and of course the British Street Food Awards in Leeds in a little less than a month! Come back soon for more adventures and stories – we have lots to tell you!
A presto!
Laura
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