As our guests arrived for dinner on a sunny Friday evening, the usual steamy kitchen mania and general panic about oven timings wasn’t consuming me. Instead I was sipping on my first glass of champagne as I tweaked the flowers on the table.
The reason for my calm feeling? We had chef Holly Sugars in residence, tending to the pots and pan’s every need.
Holly is part of La Belle Assiette, a wonderful new concept that brings a chef from your local area to cook in your home. They bring all their equipment, cook everything from scratch and leave your kitchen super clean. This gives you the chance to focus on hosting, decoration (my favourite part) and ambience. They send you the printed menus before your event, so you can place them on the table for each guest.
To start our evening many corks were popped and the beautifully crafted canapes were passed around, including chorizo cups with black beans, guacamole and sour cream, chicken tinga tacos with harrisa, mango salsa and mint yoghurt. My absolute favourites were the seared scallops with tomato vierge and salsa Verde.
Our chef was perfect with the timings and let us chat and mingle with the canapes, until it was time to sit down for our starter.
To start we had Watermelon Gazpacho with nut and seed bread croutons; incredibly refreshing and not too filling. The bread was homemade by Holly, which tasted divine. Holly is also a nutritional therapist, so we knew that all the food was pretty healthy too!
For the main course we had a beautiful bowl of baked sea bream with jerk seasoning, brown basmati rice with spring greens, toasted flaked almonds, roasted cherry plum tomatoes, & chipotle sauce. Alongside this was a huge mixed green leaf salad and a raw courgette and pumpkin seed salad.
The grand finale was a raw lemon cheesecake with a red berry tartar, and whisky ice cream.
We chatted into the night, safe in the knowledge that there was no washing up to do.. apart from our champagne glasses.
I really couldn’t recommend La Belle Assiette’s service more; the food is incredible, as is the presentation and timing. All taking place in the comfort of your own home.
Room and table styling by EDIT
