Curry Leaf Cafe's first outdoor catering event is a wedding for one of Chef Kanthi's friends up in the mountains near Barcelona. It wasn't without its challenges, as Kanthi reveals…
Are you crazy?
Last December I got a call from Angel, a good friend and also a regular at Curry Leaf Cafe. He told me he was getting married to his Czech girlfriend, Stepanka. I was so happy to be invited to the wedding in May in sunny Spain. Little did I know he had other intentions...
He asked me if they could have Curry Leaf Cafe food for their wedding lunch and the first sentence that came out immediately was, “Are you crazy? It’s not possible!” He asked me to sleep on it.
Forget Spain – we haven’t even catered to a single outdoor wedding in Brighton, so I was a bit hesitant, and it was my friend’s wedding too which inevitably meant extra pressure. But I thought maybe this was my chance, my opportunity to try something we’d never done before. New challenges are always welcome, so after a quick chat with my head chef the next morning, I said yes.
Challenges
The bride and groom really liked a venue, but it was just a holiday home with a domestic kitchen that could cater for 15 people maximum, and came equipped with little more than basic pots and pans. My first thoughts were ‘this will never work’, but they both liked it a lot and it did look beautiful.
As it materialised, over the course of a few weeks I found that this was the least of the challenges! The whole affair had to be organised as there was nothing in that place and we needed to start from scratch.
I decided to make a quick trip in February to take a look at where I’d be cooking; only then could I start planning the menu. So I headed off to Barcelona and Angel took me to the venue, on the top of a mountain with the closest town 30 minutes away and only one small supermarket. We then visited the catering company in Barcelona to form a rough idea of what we could rent and start planning my menus. One thing I knew for sure was we could get as many planchas as we needed – so tandoori starters were no problem at all. By that evening the first draft was done and when I looked at it, I realised it was four courses. Why, I thought, can’t I make things easier? Simple – I don’t do easy.
Change of dates
On my return – bad news. I found that the wedding was set for the same weekend as the Brighton & Hove Food and Drink Festival. I spoke to Angel, hoping he would change the dates, and amazingly the next day I got a call back saying they would shift the whole thing to the week after!
So in April we all got together and tried to formulate a plan: wines, glassware, service staff, kitchen equipment rental, pots and pans, plates, bowls and all that. They decided to go for biodegradable plates and cutlery, which I really liked and which would cut down on waiting staff and washing up. It’s also great for the environment, of course.
Chef Gouranga Bera loads up for business at the local supermarket
It’s time…
After a hectic week thanks to the bank holiday and the food festival, Gouranga Bera (head chef at our Ship Street cafe), and kitchen manager of The Temple Bar, Damian Gomez, and I boarded a flight to Barcelona with two suitcases full of Indian spices and my sexy I O SHEN Japanese knife. I managed to plan the whole thing – from logistics to shopping lists – during the flight, so once we landed, it was all action and no more talk.
What is ginger?
We arrived at 2am and tried to get some sleep, but in the back of my head the checklist was still making its rounds. The next day we woke up and realised we had just 24 hours to feed 100 people and, to most of them, Indian food was nothing short of alien. We drove to the nearest town and rushed into the tiny supermarket, praying we’d find everything we needed. Unfortunately, a new problem… no one there knew what ginger was! I sent an SOS to the groom and told him to find ginger somewhere or the lunch was not happening. With that solved, we landed a whole free-range chicken and Gouranga made some chicken curry for lunch, while we peeled 15kg of onions and 2kg of garlic.
Pork is marinated in spices, honey & Czech beer in preparation for the father's cookoff
Fathers Pedro & Zdenek square off at the grill in the battle for wedding day honours
The prep went on until 9pm. The kitchen equipment arrived from the hire shop and I realised there was a mistake with the order. I asked for two fryers and three pots, but they sent us three fryers and two pots. Figuring that I could deal with this the following day, I went to judge the BBQ competition that was about to take place between the bride and grooms’ fathers – a spectacular showdown between two nations and two fathers on the traditional wooden BBQ.
Hell’s kitchen
The next day, after a quick breakfast we carried on with prep while the waiter we hired helped with setting up the bar and tables in the lovely back yard.
After poppadums & chutneys (below) and a starter of veg pakoras and batate ambade, guests feasted on Hyderabadi lamb chops and Andhra coconut prawns fresh from the plancha
Both fryers were connected and the ovens were on, the planchas were set and then disaster struck – the electricity tripped under the load. Thankfully, there was another kitchen in the villa next door, and we had a spare fryer due to the mixup. We soon had the second kitchen up and running, prepping half the menu in one kitchen and the rest in the other.
The starters were all done in time and sent out to tables. Now the biggest issue was explaining the menus in three languages! Thankfully, the bride and groom helped me out.
The groom, Angel (centre of pic) serves up food and menu explanations to his guests