Palace Pearls of Wisdom

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Pearl and Pear are the undisputed arbiters of stylish events – where they lead, others follow, so we were thrilled to be specially invited by them to cater this year’s Palace Pearls of Wisdom – a day designed for Event Professionals with inspiration and education at its heart. Add the fact that it was hosted at one of our favourite venues, the glorious Banqueting House, and we were sold!

It’s always fun being given a free reign to design an event but the fact that we were designing for the top Party Professionals in London did add a certain frisson. From the start, we wanted to create a fun, vibrant and colourful eating and drinking experience which appealed to the mainly female audience and was just a little bit….well…Zaffy!

We hit upon a Hoké Poké station which combined healthy, colourful and zingy Polynesian flavours in a theatrical, interactive way, allowing guests to choose between multi coloured tacos or fresh salad bowls which they could dress, garnish and adorn to their hearts content. To balance the zero carb approach we also circulated meltingly soft pork belly with pigs skin noodles and vegan crispy tofu buddah bowls.

For dessert, guests were invited to Club Tropicana (and yes… drinks were free) for a colourful carnival of exotic puds including Coconut panna cotta with Malibu and black sesame crumb, Ambrosi mango lollipops & Halo Halo served to order – a delicious combination of shaved ice, sweetened condensed milk & fresh fruit – finished with a kitsch cocktail umbrella.

Our lovely Zaff team also embraced the exotic climes, with boys in funky Hawaiian shirts & sunglasses (pretty optimistic on a March day in London) and girls rocking exotic flower combs, hand created by Harry & Meghan’s wedding florist, Philippa Craddock no less!

The evening saw us showcase new canapes from our Spring Summer ‘19 menus, including Crab & coconut doughnut; Cured & flamed salmon and Korean fried chicken, accompanied by 2 gin based cocktails; a citrus “Clean Air” and a perfumed “Moody Rose” (named after a certain Banqueting House doyenne) served with an uber glamourous rose petal “moon ball!”

We were also delighted to devise and host two of the afternoon’s programme of workshops. The first session explored “Photographing canapes for Instagram” under the expert guidance of our Social Media guru Mia, and the second a tutored wine tasting championing “Women in Wine” and showcasing 6 stonking wines made by 3 award winning women winemakers.

Working with the best of the best on the London Events scene, it really was a visionary collaboration of event inspiration or as one guest put it…

“an education and an indulgence, so just great!”

We can’t help but agree!