Catering Culinary Trends/ideas

Kingston Station's new ice cream cocktail buffet offers liquor-spiked ice creams, gelatos, and sorbets. The Caribbean Coffee combines espresso-flavored ice cream with Kahlúa and coconut rum, while the Fidel Castro blends passion-fruit sorbet with rum. The buffet is available for on-site events and can hold five flavors. The Downtown Crossing restaurant can accommodate groups of four to 210.

The new Area Four coffee shop and bakery specializes in breakfast catering. Menu items include house-made bagels, seasonal muffins, Barrington Roasters coffee by the box, and almond croissants. Items are prepared with local, sustainable ingredients.

Sweet Cupcakes has a new location on School Street, and can deliver goods to surrounding downtown offices. Seasonal cupcake flavors for fall will include pumpkin pie, caramel apple, and s'mores, and the bakery can also customize desserts.

Gourmet Caterers is offering mini desserts such as pots de crèmes in miniature ceramic skillets and demi cups.

The Liberty Hotel is now offering whoopie pie stations for events and meetings breaks.

For a corporate party held last year in the Washington area, Magnolia Bluebird Design & Events worked with Occasions Caterers to design several made-to-order food stations, including one that let guests customize champagne cocktails. Garnish options included herbs, fruit, house-made syrups, and flavored sugar cubes.

At the February opening of Washington venue the Powerhouse, Design Cuisine added a D.I.Y. element to the cheese and charcuterie buffet: Guests topped their selections with unique spices displayed in suspended glass bowls or flavored olive oils and vinegars housed in squeeze bottles.

New York’s Great Performances can set up a dessert station featuring hanging pastry bags filled with flavored custards that guests pipe into mini beignets and profiteroles. Custard flavors include tangerine, mint, three-berry, Earl Grey, and vanilla bean.

For an event in April, Scoozi Events NYC designed a “foraged” custom cocktail bar that allowed guests to pick garden-fresh herbs, fruits, and veggies for bartenders to add to their drinks.

Wolfgang Puck Catering offers a ­poutine station that lets guests top individual plates of French fries with beef or vegetarian gravy and mozzarella or cheddar cheese curds, plus a variety of other toppings including brisket, ham, or duck confit.

At the Museum of Science & Industry’s Black Creativity gala in Chicago in January, Sodexo provided a table that held hanging terrariums of flavored salts including red chili, pink Hawaiian, smoke, and rosemary. Also on hand: grinders holding pink, green, white, and black pepper, as well as a variety of flavored butters such as lavender honey and garlic.

Miniature skillets of Yukon gold hash brown potatoes, sunny-side-up quail eggs, and crispy bacon with house-made sun-dried tomato ketchup, by L-Eat Catering in Toronto

Roasted pork belly Reubens with local ale mustard and pickled vegetables on pretzel bread, by Santa Barbara Catering in Phoenix

Sirloin sliders with strawberry milkshakes, by Elegant Affairs Off-Premise Catering & Event Design in New York

Korean-style chicken wings with scallions, fried shallots, garlic flowers, and chive flowers, by Wolfgang Puck Catering in Los Angeles

Crackle caramel corn clusters; homemade Twix bars with salted dulce de leche; and salted caramel brittle with toffee, toasted pistachios, and dark chocolate shavings, by Santa Barbara Catering in Phoenix

Chocolate-dipped toasted marshmallows with graham cracker dust and chocolate-filled pipettes, by Elegant Affairs Off-Premise Catering & Event Design in New York

French toast sticks with bourbon-infused maple syrup and blueberry thyme jam, by L-Eat Catering in Toronto

Vegetarian paneer Fire Ball naan pocket with kimchi vegetable slaw, pickled onions, red chili, cucumbers, and pickled carrots, by Entertaining Company in Chicago

Miniature biscuits filled with house-made sausage gravy, by Santa Barbara Catering in Phoenix

Sushi pizza with hamachi tartare, Cara Cara oranges, pickled ginger, scallions, cilantro, tobiko, watermelon radish, and yuzu sriracha aioli on a crispy rice cake, by Wolfgang Puck Catering in Los Angeles

Sautéed Thai chicken over sesame noodles in micro takeout boxes, by Elegant Affairs Off-Premise Catering & Event Design in New York

Individual-size poutine pizza in a corrugated cardboard box with potatoes, cheese curds, gravy, and pulled pork, by Entertaining Company in Chicago

Puck muffin with maple-glazed pork, tomato jam, sorrel, and a sunny-side-up egg, by Wolfgang Puck Catering in Los Angeles

Bagel bites with shaved wild boar prosciutto, red-eye aioli, and everything bagel crumbs, by L-Eat Catering in Toronto

Wedge salad bites served on forks, by Occasions Caterers in Washington

Seared sweet ­potato cakes topped with braised short ribs and horseradish liquid nitrogen pearls, by Chris Brugler Catering in Los Angeles

Tuna sashimi on kaffir-lime-scented rice with hibiscus “caviar,” by BG Events and Catering in Boston

Black Mission fig challah melts with aged cheddar, shallot confit, and thyme, with charred tomato and roasted butternut squash purée, by Chris Brugler Catering in Los Angeles

Seared scallops with roasted shiitake mushrooms and shiitake-chive foam on buttered toast rounds, by Shiraz Events in New York, Miami, and Los Angeles

Buttermilk-fried chicken and waffle bites with black pepper gravy and scallions, by Oliver & Bonacini Events in Toronto

Fingerling potato cups filled with truffled steak tartare, by BG Events and Catering in Boston

Crispy malanga tacos with smoked tuna belly, spicy corn aioli, and roasted root ­vegetable ­confetti, by Shiraz Events in New York, Miami, and Los Angeles

Griddled new potatoes topped with quail eggs, olives, and sun-dried tomatoes, by Oliver & Bonacini Events in Toronto

Cabernet-and-fennel-braised rabbit wrapped in buckwheat crepes with fennel-scented crème fraîche and port reduction, by Shiraz Events in New York, Miami, and Los Angeles

Poached shrimp served with horseradish-infused tomato water and lemon oil, by Occasions Caterers in Washington