Tired of seeing the same menu at every event you attend? Ripe Food and Events owner Joshua Riazi says his goal is to make all of his events unique. Located in Rhode Island, Ripe Food and Events is a full-service catering and events company that works with all types of clients. Here, Riazi gives us some ideas of new types of parties that people can host.
One of the coolest new trends in the catering industry is the public’s interest in home-based parties. And to capitalize on that interest, we have started offering private wine pairing and food tasting parties that our clients can hold right inside their own homes.
More so than ever before, I have noticed a shift with people. They really enjoy hosting parties inside their homes instead of hold a party at a restaurant. Not only is hosting a party at home a safer option since it reduces the amount of travel many guests have to face after a long night, but it’s generally more intimate and fun.
What happens at a wine pairing event is that we will bring a wine consultant to the home of the party hosts and that consultant will discuss various wines with the hosts and their guests. The wine consultants we have are knowledgeable about wines and they typically have local wines to taste with the guests, as well.
The second aspect of the event is the pairing portion, where we will cook foods and pair them with the wines that are being served. So this type of event is really a whole culinary type of experience that most people don’t get to have everyday.
One great thing about having a catering company like our own come to your event is that we will put the whole thing together. We are the ones who hire the wine experts and the people we hire are knowledgeable about their wine lists. For instance, so they love coming out and talking to people about their wines.
Another fun option we can offer people is to have a vendor or an actual winemaker come by if he is already in town. So if that is the case, we will try to bring the winemaker to the party host’s home to talk to the guests about the wines that he makes, and of course everyone can taste these wines.
Among the many benefits to party hosts who choose this type of event is that they don’t have to worry about guests breaking any of their fine glassware or dishes because we will bring our own serving trays and things to handle the entire event.
If a host does own and wants to use his china or glassware, then we can definitely use it. And that, by the way, is a great way to add a personal touch to the event. We had one client, for example, who already had a full bar inside his home. So rather than bringing the glassware for the party, we used the materials he already had. Things like that are fantastic, but definitely not necessary.
Although wine pairing parties would be a great for a lot of types of events, I find that most people want them for their own private parties rather than for larger corporate-type events. It is just a chic thing that couples can do to host a private wine pairing party for their closest friends at their home.
Reflecting back, one of the first reasons that we got into this catering business was because of the culture shift toward people wanting to have more in-home events rather than visiting restaurants to celebrate birthdays or milestones. So this is just another example of all the great things we can offer by catering small gatherings inside people’s homes.
The foods that we serve at these types of events need to complement the wines that were chosen, and the wines need to complement the food. So the menus will definitely vary based on what types of wines we get.
Because we cook with so many seasonal items at Ripe Food and Events, and because get our ingredients come local farmers for the most part, the dishes that we serve will be based largely on what foods are available at the time of the party. So we will look at what wines are being served, figure out what produce is locally available, and then find a beautiful and tasty match that we will go with.
