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Inspiration From the Culinary Industry: Recreating the Alinea Dessert Experience at Events

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As a creative bunch, some of our fabulous ideas are often outlandish without a concrete method of execution. This is where our vendors, who are all connoisseurs in their own areas, come into play.  One such idea was inspired by Alinea Restaurant in Chicago.

We recently did an event where one of the client’s main goals was to increase opportunities for networking and interaction throughout the evening. We had been dying to replicate the famous chocolate dessert created at the esteemed Chicago based restaurant, Alinea, and saw this as the perfect opportunity. However, doing it for an event of 450 people was a serious undertaking. The dessert at Alinea begins with a silicon tablecloth; the chefs then create a stunning almost Picasso like artistic creation, transforming dots into squares with gel, a chocolate & honey explosion created with freeze dried blueberries scattered on the cloth. It’s almost impossible to describe, so check out the video online!

For our recreation, we were working with an amazing caterer who at first was unsure they could pull it off. Eventually, our encouragement pushed them to take on the challenge.

Not surprisingly, the caterer exceeded our expectations as well as our client’s. They went with a chocolate and cherries theme that included nitrogen poached cherry mousse, Belgian chocolate pate, crispy macaroons, and cherry vodka foam. It provided an opportunity for the guests to interact with each other as well as with the chefs creating the dessert and everyone had a ball! It tasted and looked amazing as you can see in the picture above.

Passing Food in Unconventional Ways

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Dim Sum Inspiration: From Restaurant to Drawing Board

We are constantly finding inspiration from unassuming, everyday sources. The challenge comes in transforming our inspired ideas into viable event concepts.

A lunch trip to a dim sum restaurant inspired the concepts for our own branding event – food served in unconventional ways. We envisioned push cart food stations, hanging bars, marshmallow trees for s’mores, and serving from sandwich boards instead of trays.

Our event had three levels, which enhanced the look and feel but created a lot of logistical challenges. We found the greatest logistical challenges in the hanging bars and the push cart stations.

Incorporating Food Carts

With the carts, we had to consider: How would they travel between the different levels? How easily will they move on carpet? How do we ensure they get replenished? We had to consider how the space we were creating would affect the moving stations.

To make this concept feasible, we created paths from the catering kitchen to guest areas on each level. To address replenishment concerns, the caterers used an ice-cream style cart that could house food items and allow for quick on-the-spot replenishment.

The hanging bars had their own challenges… How could we make them functional, yet visually appealing? The bars needed to be sturdy enough to hold drinks and ice, and be heavy enough to create stability. An hour of wandering the aisles at Lowes’ Home Improvement lead us to diamond-cut metal sheets and attach them over top of white wired closet shelving.  We then suspended them from the truss arches with chains.

The hanging bars created a wow factor for guests – none of whom could tell they were made from construction and closet materials!