Function Catering Feature - Part 3
Pushing the food envelope

In part three of our Function Catering feature we talk to STUART WEBB, Delaware North’s Executive Chef at the Sydney Cricket Ground and Allianz Stadium Moore park, which regularly hosts functions both on event days and non-event periods.

“Across our function space we do everything from stand-up cocktail parties with canapes to live stations with chef interaction and plated meals – with food of many, many different styles, and we’re continually being challenged by the customer to try something new,” Stuart tells us. 

The type of food served at event day functions is very much influenced by what type of event it is and the space in which it’s served – “T20 Cricket, as an example, is the type of event which requires a faster service as there’s more emphasis on watching the sport. At a rugby union event, on the other hand, we serve at pre-game and half-time. AFL catering is more spread out due to the time the players spend on the pitch.

Then there’s the question of where we’re serving – you have the tradition of the formal Chairman’s Room, then there are other spaces where the client demographic dictates the service style.”

Stuart’s food philosophy focuses on sourcing as much local produce as possible and “trying to keep it as clean and fresh as we can, without playing around with the food too much. In order to achieve the food standards we’re pushing for, we need to surround ourselves not only with talented fulltime chefs but also great casual staff. We debrief after every event – was the food the best we could make it, was the execution the best we could deliver? And that drives us each time to rethink how we can make it even better.”

While the SCG generally goes to market with a specialised festive season package, Stuart says demand for festive-focused meals is not what it was: “I think a lot of businesses have cut their events budgets, there has been a drop-off for festive events but we’re still busily engaged with a lot of non-event day activities especially as we lead into the summer of cricket.”

Seafood is in strong demand for SCG functions right now, and Stuart cites the recent Duke of Edinburgh awards presentation where “we used green U8 prawns battered in tempura or char grilled after house marinating, and presented on a beautiful brioche bun. We put together a heavily seafood oriented menu for that. We fly in marron which are big freshwater crayfish from WA for the cricket season – we always source the freshest seafood we possibly can.”

Changing presentation styles

Stuart says presentation styles are changing over time: “The focus now is to have between six to eight elements on the plate, which vary in contrast, visuals and flavour, and yet which all marry together. In my opinion Markus Werner (corporate executive chef at Delaware North, which runs the SCG catering operation) has led the way in this area, and we’ve applied that approach across the business over the last three years. We’ve added more proteins on the plate – there might be two or three served in different styles so there’s a lot more composition and colour.”

Catering operations at the SCG naturally embrace the many events hosted by the sporting organisations who play there, as well as for the players themselves. “We’ve just completed winter menu tasting for all the codes and they have confidence in our ability not just to write menus but to execute them extremely well. The challenge is to encourage trial of new things – the Roosters just won the Grand Final and we’ll be doing a private tasting for them, presenting our ideas for what will work in their corporate stations.  

“Once they have confidence in what you can do, you can say ‘have you tried this?’ We try to take that approach in our menu tastings. We’ll do a private tasting for the Swans’ Chairman’s Room and they’ll come in and we’ll say, ‘this is our vision, what do you think?’ And they may say ‘that’s great but it’s not for my palate’. You can only challenge them once they have the confidence in you.” 

Harnessing the team’s talent

Meals for the players have been a big focus for Stuart since he came on board. “We devoted a massive amount of time last year and this year to put together a menu that challenged us and took on their feedback. For the Indian cricket tour and test match I’ve got an Indian chef and I explained to the Indian team that while Indian cuisine was not my speciality, I was putting him forward and he delivered an outstanding result. The result for us from a foodservice perspective was among the best we’ve delivered.

“You try to harness the talent you have within your team – I’ve got junior sous chefs from Italy, Indonesia and India, I have chefs from Malaysia and China, so many different parts of the world. Australia is so multicultural today that it gives us a lot of expertise we can use – we can marry up the cuisine with the staff who have the right skillset. Once they have the confidence to do it, we give them the input. We say, ‘bring your brain to work and show us what you can do’.”

“The people we have are highly credentialed, talented chefs - not only individually, but also when they operate as a team. We’re constantly training, developing and pushing the food envelope. It’s a collective approach to menu design - I might have an idea but everyone has an opportunity to have input and drive the menu into different directions, through which we try to challenge the customer.”

Making food stations a focal point

Themed corporate events are another key focus for the SCG: “last year we hosted eight or nine hundred people from Google in our retail space, with all the outlets and food themed around the 1990s. We had music from the era, the staff were dressed in nineties styles, the MC was doing an Austin Powers impression, and we served eight different food styles. Our sous chef wrote the menus for the whole event and executed it flawlessly.”

These kind of functions provide the opportunity for a little theatre, as Stuart acknowledges: “if you have a food station with some height to it, you can make it a focal point of the room and people get intrigued – they have to walk up and see what’s on offer. I remember walking into one function where we were setting up a  croquembouche station which stood about six feet high, and everyone was just staring at it. There was a real vibe as we brought it in and when we set it down we got a round of applause.”