Sit-Down, Buffet, Family Style, or Food Stations: Which Format to Choose

The task of planning a wedding, business function, or other catered event often involves choosing between sit-down and buffet style service. There are a lot of good choices. Among them are: family style service, cocktail receptions, food stations, and hors d'oeuvres. There are pros and cons that come with each option, so deciding what your goals and priorities are will help you determine what fits best for your particular event. Is formality or casualness part of your event? Is the food quality the most important consideration, or are you primarily concerned with having a wide variety and a large amount of food? Would you prefer to have your guests visit while eating or sit down to a full meal?
When you have a sit down dinner, the food should be served up fresh, straight from the pan to the plate. Quite a number of hotels and cheaper caterers pre-plate main courses and maintain them in a warming area before adding the sauce and serving them. That's why you will often find rubbery, dried out food at big events. Be sure to find out how the food will be plated. You can either visit the kitchen of the hotel you are booking or just ask the caterer about presentation.
When you have a sit-down dinner, your guests will tend to eat food the way it is served. This means they will get the right amount of main dish and side dish and an appropriate amount of sauce. The particular event will dictate whether the presentation of the food is refined or rustic. Whichever the case, the food often maintains its integrity and is simply dished and served at an acceptable temperature with attention paid to details. The best thing is for the food to be served hot out of the pan, directly onto the plate.
When food is served family style, it is put on the table on platters.  The platters are then passed as the guests serve themselves, or can be aided by a service staff member. This style can conjure up the atmosphere of a villa in Tuscany, where everyone dines at long "king's tables", an arrangement in which several 8 foot tables are set up together, forming a single long narrow table. Of course, a family style dinner will not allow you to have continuous, consistent presentation since people will be taking food off the platters as they go around the table. Nonetheless, this can be a very enjoyable and attractive way to serve a meal if the right food choices are made. One of the downsides is that the guests who are served last from a certain platter miss the opportunity of appreciating the same presentation as those who were served first.
Today many hosts do not want their guests spending a lot of time standing in line, so buffets are not as popular as they used to be. As the guests are filling their plates, sometimes things can get jumbled, as the various flavors and sauces become mixed and run together with each other. With buffet style meals, it can be difficult to keep food the right temperature. One thing you could try is a chafing dish. However, these can overcook your food or just dry it out if it sits there too long. For this reason, high-end caterers don't use them much any more. Instead, they keep the food fresh by putting it out a bit at a time on warmed platters. When the weather is warmer, and there are cold foods, such as salads or sushi, keeping them cold can be a challenge, but skilled caterers devise creative ways to solve this problem. Because guests generally take more food than they can eat, waste is a considerable factor with buffets.
The main advantage of serving buffet-style is that it's easier to offer a broad selection of food to choose from, which can be a good alternative for a diversified group of people having widely varying tastes. Buffet style service often uses a smaller service staff, and sometimes can be cheaper than the cost of a sit down event. Due to the fact that guests are forced to get out of their seats and interact while in line, buffets foster socialization.
If you want to encourage your guests to mingle, you should set up food stations and provide a cocktail reception. Usually food stations are opened individually and appetizers are passed among the guests. It has replaced traditional buffets in popularity. With this scenario, differently themed food stations are set up around the room. Some people choose to offer "action stations". In this option, the food is prepared fresh right in front of the guests. This means hotter, fresher food for your guests to enjoy. Sushi can be rolled to order, meat can be carved, pasta tossed, and oysters shucked directly onto the plate. As guests get smaller individual plates from each station, they will continuously interact with each other as they progress through the stations.
You can have a very successful dinner party by combining formats. For example you could have a cocktail reception, a sit-down dinner, and a dessert buffet with coffee and cognac.

Ethan Mantle, owner of Componere Fine Catering a gourmet San Francisco caterers company, uses organic and seasonal ingredients in as many of his catering dishes as possible. For people looking for San Francisco wedding catering, Componere Fine Catering can make your next event truly unforgettable.

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