Catering is not a particularly dynamic field; changes are subtle and slow to occur. Having observed the catering scene in New York over the past 50 years, I have seen a few changes that perhaps suggest the changes in our tastes and priorities.

It appears to me that there has been a major shift in the amount of importance wine is given at events. When I started 50 years ago at the Plaza, guests giving a party would agonize over not only which wine to serve but what vintage it would be. The hotel had to maintain a large inventory of the world’s more desirable wines with a depth of vintages to answer the clients’ needs. In the 1980s when I was at the Pierre, guests still cared deeply about serving prestige wines at the more elaborate and social events. Even charities were genuinely concerned about the wine they were serving. If a family was having a lavish wedding or Bar Mitzvah, only Dom Perignon or Louis Roederer Cristal would suffice. The white wine was inevitably Puligny or Chassagne-Montrachetand the red at least the second wine of Lafite, Margaux or Latour. Continue reading →

Catering is not a particularly dynamic field; changes are subtle and slow to occur. Having observed the catering scene in New York over the past 50 years, I have seen a few changes that perhaps suggest the changes in our tastes and priorities.

It appears to me that there has been a major shift in the amount of importance wine is given at events. When I started 50 years ago at the Plaza, guests giving a party would agonize over not only which wine to serve but what vintage it would be. The hotel had to maintain a large inventory of the world’s more desirable wines with a depth of vintages to answer the clients’ needs. In the 1980s when I was at the Pierre, guests still cared deeply about serving prestige wines at the more elaborate and social events. Even charities were genuinely concerned about the wine they were serving. If a family was having a lavish wedding or Bar Mitzvah, only Dom Perignon or Louis Roederer Cristal would suffice. The white wine was inevitably Puligny or Chassagne-Montrachetand the red at least the second wine of Lafite, Margaux or Latour. Continue reading →