Best of 2018: Caterers Describe the Coolest Dishes They Created This Year

The fifth course at the same Blue Plate dinner was called "Things Aren’t Always As They Seem." It was meant to surprise the guests, with cheese molded to resemble summer fruits, pumpernickel “dirt,” chocolate-covered “grasshoppers,” edible “pebbles,” and grilled bread.

For a winter wonderland-theme party, New York-based Peter Callahan used actual snowballs to serve cocktails. The tray was laid with shaved ice to hold the snowballs in place, and the team carefully measured the amount of the drink to commensurate with the time the guest could comfortably hold the snowball—no gloves required.

At the opening of the new City Market Social House, Los Angeles-based Wolfgang Puck Catering debuted “Rose and Lemongrass Infused Dew Drops.” Chefs used a spherification process that allowed guests to eat gazpacho right off of a fresh-cut rose bud.

Creative Edge in New York created "Fenced In," a dish comprised of heirloom green tomatoes, burrata, smoked pepper pesto, and micro herbs underneath an edible lattice dome. For certain events, the catering firm serves it with a small wooden hammer, allowing guests to break the lattice apart and create a crouton effect.

For the premiere of the latest season of American Horror Story, Los Angeles-based Love Catering worked with FX Networks and Industria Creative on a menu of black-color appetizers. Highlights included a smoked charcoal yucca with cauliflower-squid ink mousse (pictured), plus a reverse spherified charcoal vodka lemonade cocktail.

Toronto-based catering firm Eatertainment created an Enchanted Forest-theme dessert station this year, which included s'mores cones, matcha green-tea cookies, and black forest-flavored cookies.

Also part of Eatertainment's Enchanted Forest set-up were pre-batched cocktails served in glass suspension funnels. The "Tropical Twisted Vodka Cocktail" (left) featured Asian apple vodka, tropical fruit juice, grenadine, and red edible shimmer powder, while the "Pineapple Gin Cooler" (right) included gin, fresh pineapple juice, fresh lime juice, and gold edible shimmer powder.

Los Angeles-based firm Patina Catering created a hollow sea urchin filled with yuzu granite. The urchin is brought out on a bed of rock salt that has clove, cinnamon, and juniper, and it is torched until fragrant.

At a fund-raiser for the Illinois Masonic Medical Center, Chicago-based caterer Blue Plate created a five-course dinner inspired by how a child with autism experiences the world. The first course, called "A Play on Expectations and Disorientation," was served on a Jacob's Ladder-inspired serving dish. (Jacob's Ladder toys are used to release energy and combat anxiety.) The dish included a corn-saffron push pop, sweet white corn bisque, elote with poached langoustine and chorizo, and baby corn.

Love Catering created an on-theme meal for H&M and Moschino's fall collaboration. Working with the Gathery, the caterers helped execute the event's 1990s MTV theme, creating a twist on the classic Salisbury steak TV dinner. The tray-passed dish featured an elevated array of mini bites, including pan-seared filet mignon topped with brown butter gravy, and a tri-color carrot disc with wild mushroom and tarragon aioli.

F10-Catering in Palm Springs, California, created an Indio corn station featuring a variety of dishes all made with local corn. Items included Indio corn fritters, made with bacon, arugula, and sweet chili sauce; corn blini, made with creme fraiche and caviar; corn panna cotta; corn and roasted papilla chile tamales; and more.

For Los Angeles restaurant Venue 66, Patina Catering used Saku tuna, ponzu, yuzu granite, and furikake to make a unique, visual dish. Spoons of tuna were placed on streaks of green scallion puree and furikake, and the granite was spooned over the tuna.

National food and beverage corporation Centerplate recently added beehives to the top of the Javits Convention Center in New York. The company uses the hives to source their own "Jacob's Honey," which head chef Alex Reyes uses for salad dressings and desserts, such as the cardamon panna cotta with rose water honey syrup (pictured). Jacob's Honey bottles are also given as gifts for partners and clients.

The Purple Pig in Chicago serves a turkey leg confit. Large turkey legs are cured overnight with fennel seed, black peppercorns, cayenne pepper, salt, and sugar, then confited in pork fat with rosemary, sage, thyme, and garlic. They are served with a salad of endive, fresh parsley, and crispy fried lentils, and finished with agrodolce.