Becoming familiar with the various styles of catering services can be helpful when choosing the service style that best suits your event. Knowing the level of service to expect from each style will also assist you in creating a catering/service budget and selecting the most appropriate style for your event
Table of content
- Passed or Traypass
- Buffet
- English Style Service
- French Style Service
- Family Style Service
- Russian Style Service
- American Style Service
1. Passed or Traypass
This is a very popular and classic service where waitstaff walk around the venue holding trays of food or beverages and offer them to guests. This service style is particularly popular during cocktail hours and gives your event an elegant, upscale look and feel.
2. Buffet
Buffet-style service involves displaying food in chafing dishes on long tables. Guests move along the buffet line and select what they would like to eat before returning to their seats. Typically, guests serve themselves, but you can also have servers available to restock the food pans and assist your guests. Servers may also provide beverage and water service at the tables, but this is not mandatory. An additional way to add an elegant touch to any buffet is by having servers carry guests’ plates to their tables for them.
3. French Style
4. English Style
English-style service is where guests serve themselves by choosing the amount of food they want from a dish displayed to the left of them. To maintain hygiene, guests should be provided with separate spoon and trench fork, which can be in the form of a tweezer. It’s a classy option that reduces food waste, but keep in mind that it requires more waitstaff and can be slower since guests serve themselves. Also, it’s important to avoid using guests’ personal cutlery to serve common dishes.
5. Family Syle
Family-style dining—sometimes referred to as “large-format dining”—is when food is served on large platters meant for sharing, rather than as individual plates. Diners serve themselves from the food platters, just like you might at home in your dining room.
6. Russian Syle
This type of services consist basically of bringing a cart to the customer’s table with the piece prepared from kitchen.
As a rule the piece is perfectly decorated and showy for the customer. Once we meet in front of the customer the person in charge proceeds to cut the pieces. It is usually combined with English service.
It is a very showy service for the diner. Since it requires some elegance on the part of the waiter when preparing the piece to distribute it on the dishes.
7. Plated meal or American Style
This service is the most efficient and straightforward of all catering styles. The pre-prepared dishes are brought directly to the diners’ table, with service taking place on the right-hand side. Guests are seated and food is served from the left, while beverages are served from the right. Used dishes and glasses are removed from the right side as well
Written by AMANDA G. | Featuring EVENT STAFFING AGENCY