Brooklyn-based Karen Ferries launched The Cocktail Party Chef in March, creating impeccably stylish hors d’oeuvres for intimate affairs. Ferries, who is a graduate of the French Culinary Institute, gained experience in events working at Daniel Boulud’s catering company, Feast & Fêtes, where she learned the labor-intensive art of making perfect canapés. Her background also includes a stint as an assistant food stylist, working on shoots for magazines such as Bon Appétit and O, The Oprah Magazine—a fact that is apparent in her trademark precision and attention to detail. “[Styling] taught me to look at food differently,” she says. “It might sound crazy, but I’ll go through a whole barrel of miniature apples to find the ones with the perfect shape.”
Ferries’s roster of 150 sweet and savory bites is ever-expanding. In addition to theme menus and unusual options such as carbonara soup dumplings, cassoulet croustades, and Granny Smith apple pizzas with almond cream, the lineup also includes staples—fish tacos, sliders, crab cakes, deviled eggs—with an updated look. (For example, Ferries’s shrimp cocktail places shrimp, tomato water, homemade cocktail sauce fish set with gelatin, and fresh-grated horseradish in a Chinese soup spoon.) She makes the vast majority of her dry goods—flatbreads, shortbread dough, puff pastry shells—from scratch, and she emphasizes presentation, outfitting serving trays with kraft paper and clean, tasteful details like white birch and dried abalone discs. “I try to tailor the tray decor to the client,” she says.
While Ferries’s company can serve as many as 150, her sweet spot is guest lists between 30 and 50. Recent clients include leather accessories brand M0851, wireless speaker company Sonos, and real estate brokerage firm Halstead Property.
