There is something about New Orleans that is difficult to recreate simply by decorating a room.
You can bring in the fleur-de-lis. You can add the colors, the music and a few familiar menu items. But New Orleans has never really been about any one of those things. It is about the feeling created when food, music, cocktails, conversation and hospitality all come together.
So when we were asked to help create a Big Easy-inspired evening for a South Tampa School’s annual fundraising gala, that was where we started. For this New Orleans themed fundraiser in Tampa Bay, our team at Good Food Events + Catering set out to create more than a menu. We wanted the entire evening to feel like a trip to the Big Easy.
We didn’t simply want to serve New Orleans food.
We wanted the evening to feel like New Orleans.
A Little Taste of the Big Easy
The experience began before guests ever reached the main event space.
A French 75 welcomed them at the entrance, combining gin and fresh lemon with sparkling wine and a lemon twist. Champagne circulated through the crowd as guests arrived, giving everyone an opportunity to settle in, reconnect and begin enjoying the evening.
From there, the food started coming to them.
Our team moved through the party with Creole-inspired small bites including pan-sautéed lump crab cakes with white remoulade, Tasso cheddar croquettes finished with cider honey, shrimp cocktail shooters, Cajun roast pork sliders, Louisiana meat pies and corn blini with smoked duck and hot honey.
This is one of my favorite ways to begin a large event. Rather than immediately asking several hundred people to find a buffet or food station, we bring the hospitality to them.
Guests can grab a cocktail, find friends and start experiencing the menu without ever leaving the conversation.
Then We Opened Up the Kitchen
As the evening moved into the main hall, the culinary experience changed with it.
Instead of building one traditional buffet, we created a collection of independent food stations that allowed guests to wander, discover and choose what they wanted to experience next.
That included some unmistakably Louisiana flavors.
There were Grillades + Grits, with slow-braised beef and Creole brown gravy over our Southern-style white cheddar grits. There was Eggplant Étouffée and Cajun jambalaya with blackened chicken and smoked sausage.
And then there was pasta.
Our Creole pasta station was built as a live chef-attended action station, because whenever possible, we would rather have guests watch their food being prepared than simply watch it disappear from a chafing dish.
Shrimp Roban combined shell pasta with a spicy Cajun cream sauce and green onion, while blackened chicken pesto farfalle brought together fresh tomatoes, arugula, house-made basil pesto and Parmesan.
The difference is more than presentation.
There is energy in watching a chef work. You hear the pan, you see the steam, you smell dinner before the plate ever reaches your hand.
Food becomes part of the entertainment. And for us, that is what an action station should be.
A Bar Program With Its Own Story
The cocktails deserved just as much attention as the food.
Rather than simply opening several identical full bars around the room, we incorporated cocktails that helped continue the New Orleans story.
There was the French 75 at arrival, followed later by Pimm’s Cups, Sazeracs and espresso martinis, each available from designated bars throughout the evening.
The Sazerac in particular felt right at home.
Rye whiskey. Peychaud’s bitters. Absinthe. Lemon peel.
Simple ingredients, but a cocktail with an unmistakable sense of place.
And that is something we think about quite a bit when designing an event. A bar doesn’t have to be somewhere guests simply go to get a drink. With the right menu, presentation and bartenders, it becomes another experience within the party.
Because good spirits bring people together.
Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler
One of the best things about these photographs is that they capture something a catering proposal never really can. They capture the movement.
A bartender shaking cocktails behind the bar. A chef tossing pasta over an open flame. Servers moving through the crowd with trays of shrimp cocktail. Guests reaching for a drink. Artists working. People laughing.
That’s hospitality in motion.
And somewhere in the middle of all of it, glowing above the bar, were the words that summed up the entire evening:
Laissez les bons temps rouler.
Let the good times roll.
That is a pretty good philosophy for a party.
And No Trip to New Orleans Ends Without Something Sweet
Eventually, the evening made its way to dessert.
Our Beignet + Café au Lait Cart served fresh-fried New Orleans-style beignets, dusted generously with powdered sugar and served hot, alongside café au lait made with coffee, chicory and hot milk.
But we still weren’t finished.
At 10:30pm, just as the evening was beginning to wind down, guests were sent off with one final taste of New Orleans: a Creole-seasoned buttermilk fried chicken slider with Cajun-garlic aioli and pickle, served with crispy tater tots.
Because if you’re going to take people on a culinary trip to New Orleans, you might as well make sure nobody leaves hungry.
Creating an Experience, Not Just a Menu
Events like this are why we love what we do.
The food matters. The cocktails matter. The presentation matters. But ultimately, none of those things exist independently.
They are pieces of a larger experience.
For this evening, our job wasn’t simply to cater dinner for a school fundraiser. It was to help transport hundreds of guests somewhere else for a few hours and to use food and hospitality to help tell that story.
That is when catering becomes something more interesting.
And judging from the smiles, cocktails, empty plates and a few clouds of powdered sugar along the way, I’d say the good times definitely rolled.
Laissez les bons temps rouler.
