Say Hello To Stephen
A Bit Of Background…
We are delighted to introduce you to Stephen Ferrari, who heads up all things food at Four Gables Events – he is found over a steaming stove, refining our menus and creating amazing, complex and creative dishes that reflect our style. Stephen is a huge asset to the business and will play a key role in your event.
Stephen, you’ve been our head chef for quite a while now, what is your favourite style to show off what you do?
You’re right, it’s been a little while now! Joining Four Gables in 2021 is still the best career move I’ve ever made – but don’t tell the team that! The beauty of what we do is that every event is different, so the food is always changing and evolving. My aim, and the aim of the kitchen team is to make everything as creative and memorable as possible. Having fun with food is what we are all about.
We noticed in Seasoned 26’ talk about live food stations, can you expand on what they are?
We felt one area we hadn’t ventured into enough was live station cooking in front of guests, and we were determined with Seasoned 26’ to change that. It’s all about ‘food theatre.’ Cooking and serving in front of guests is an interactive style of service which has become very popular recently.
My personal favourite is using our Japanese Konro grill for our ‘Sticks’ station, the smoke, the smell, always gets people interested and talking, and that is what it’s about!
I saw last year you created a menu for a particular brand that shares your last name! Can you explain how you show brand identity through food?
A great question! You can imagine the excitement inside me when that brief hit our email inbox. It can be difficult to show off certain brand identities, but we love a challenge. I think a good place to start is what is the core value of the brand? A great example of this is sustainability, something that’s a super hot topic at the moment.
We take these core values along with our knowledge of the brand through meeting people and create awesome food and experiences. This particular brand was all about luxury, class and opulence, so we wanted to make something sleek and classy.
Telling stories through food seems like your thing. What’s been a highlight example of that?
I think it’s important, especially with our wedding couples. A wedding, for example, is all about the couple you’re working with and everyone is there to celebrate them and anything I can do through food to show them off as important, I think it helps us play our part in making that day a lot more personal and special.
There are too many examples to go through! Menus based on certain cuisines, based on a childhood memory, a first date, all of these moments generally have good at the heart of them and anything the kitchen team and I can do to bring that to life is great fun.
Rumour has it you are planning your own wedding this year! How has it felt to be the other side of all of that?
I knew this would come up!
It’s been strange to say the least, but having helped plan many other weddings, my main objective was to enjoy it! My role has been all the logistics, something I deal with on a day-to-day basis! My fiancé, Chloe, has been amazing at organising all the bits around how the day will look/play out, and I cannot wait to see it all come to life!
I don’t suppose you know any good caterers we could use?