With imaginative dishes, “action stations,” and creative overall themes, club chefs are doing their part to restore the buffet’s good name.
In too many circles, the buffet has lost its cachet. Once universally regarded as a sophisticated spread for sampling a wide array of sweets and savories, it has become, when left in the hands of “all-you-can-eat” operators, little more than a crass, mass-feeding frenzy of mediocre meals and (way too much) substance over style.
Fortunately, in the face of this desecration, chefs at clubs and resorts are finding new ways to not only preserve the lost art of the buffet, but elevate it, with intriguing twists and international accents.
At the opposite end of the spectrum from the pile-everything-on-and-move-down-the-line school are the individual small-plate stylings of culinary “performance artists” like Michael Redmond, Executive Chef of the Genesee Valley Club in Rochester, N.Y. In the tradition of the popular Spanish tapas, Redmond’s “one- or two-bite” small-plate selections are dished up at a succession of interactive “action stations.”
Although tapas are Spanish in origin, their contents and combinations have no national boundaries for Redmond. He includes a global assortment of appetizing combinations that often includes made-to-order English pea cakes, seared Japanese Kobe beef salad, and hand-made ravioli with puttanesca relish and basil oil.
Each small-plate station is themed to reflect its country of origin. The Japanese station, for example, may be embellished with woks and fans.
Even at a formal club like Genesee Valley, tapas stations give staff and guests “an opportunity to interact and really get [everyone] talking among themselves,” Redmond observes. The fact that each serving is small, he adds, makes it easier for guests to “step outside of their usual culinary comfort zones for a taste of something new.” Even the most committed carnivore is often willing to at least try a taste of tofu, he says.
Small plates also lend themselves to the use of creative serving vessels. Redmond, for example, serves watermelon gazpacho in shot glasses. He also presents small portions of tomato and fresh mozzarella salad, duck and white bean salad, seared ahi tuna with pea tendril salad, and other hot and cold combinations in compartmentalized Japanese bento boxes. A shrimp plate may come with a shooter glass filled with a mixture of bracingly tart yuzu (a Japanese citrus fruit) that’s been tamed with a sweet touch of passion fruit. “The yuzu is like a chaser for the shrimp,” Redmond says.
Mesmerizing Mozzarella
In the buffet line at the Forsgate Country Club in Monroe Township, N.J., the action often focuses on the mozzarella-making station. Guests are mesmerized as chefs boil the curds, stretch out the cheese, and form it into rolls stuffed with sun-dried tomatoes, basil and prosciutto. After watching the process, guests are especially eager to sample the colorful pinwheel slices of cheese, notes Det Williams, the club‘s Director of Food and Beverage.
Carving stations, of course, have always been a big part of buffets. At Forsgate, Executive Chef Mike Kasperek adds to the traditional 150-lb. steamship rounds of roast beef and whole turkeys with an elegant take on coulibiac, wrapping a whole butterflied side of salmon stuffed with crab and roast corn in puff pastry (Kasperek carves puff pastry “scales” into the pastry for an extra decorative touch). A lemon buerre blanc accompanies the fish.
Many clubs, including Chevy Chase Country Club in Chevy Chase, Md., feature mashed potato bars on their buffets. But Executive Chef Joachim Buchner also gives the concept a Southern spin, by offering the option of a grits bar. Guests select either cheddar cheese or herb and garlic grits, then go “shopping among the toppings,” which include sautéed small shrimp with tomato and basil, sautéed chicken nuggets with garlic and chive, whipped butter, onion and pepper.
Hot Stuff and Devilish Desserts
To say that action stations are catching fire at today’s club buffets is more than just a comment on their growing popularity. Chefs are now grilling, sautéing, and flambéing everything from Steak Diane (at Forsgate CC) to the poached peach topping for a flaming Melba dessert (at Chevy Chase CC).
One of the most requested desserts at Forsgate is baked Alaska, which Kasperek prepares by cutting sheet pan-baked pound cake into 10- to 12-inch squares and then topping the pieces with ice cream, enveloping the entire sweet package in meringue, giving it a quick browning in the oven, and hitting the whole thing with flaming rum for a dramatic debut at the buffet table.
Another tongue-awakening meal finale at Forsgate is “Heaven and Hell”—a sauté of sweet, ripe strawberries, brown sugar and butter, flamed with rum and Grand Marnier, spiked with cracked black pepper, and poured over vanilla ice cream.
As part of his dessert buffets, Kasperek also likes to include a station for making flaming Irish coffee in sugar-rimmed mugs (the fire caramelizes the sugar, adding flavor and texture to the drink).
And before firing up the peaches for his Melba, Chevy Chase’s Buchner creates another vibrant visual by working at cold marble slabs, folding fresh raspberries into the vanilla ice cream that is the base for the dessert.
Exciting All the Senses
In addition to the up-close-and-personal excitement of watching the chef at work and the visual excitement of the dancing flames, action stations enhance buffets by offering a potent punch of appetizing aromas. Buchner likes to greet guests to his buffets with the smells of sautéing garlic, onions and herbs—a comforting reminder, he says, of when as a child he would awaken every Sunday morning to the food fragrances wafting from his mother’s kitchen.
But the action doesn’t have to be hot to be cool on today’s buffets. At Kasperek’s custom ceviche stations, he “pre-cooks” (ceviche-style) at least five different raw seafood selections, such as red snapper, tuna, shrimp, scallops and octopus, in a citric marinade for a day or two prior to the buffet.
Guests are then invited to mix and match seafood items along with additions such as diced tomato, watermelon, mango, papaya, scallions and cucumbers, sesame seeds, and jicama, which the chef tosses together in an individual bowl. And for a final “blast of flavor,” the ceviche chef tops the customized creation with a guajillo chili honey dressing.
Forsgate also does a live sushi station, using Asian-style wooden boats as the primary decoration and serving pieces. Guests select their sushi pieces from the boat, while on-the-spot chefs continually hand-craft more of the fish-veggie-and-rice rolls, to replenish the centerpiece. Bowls of fresh wasabi, pickled ginger and traditional trimmings allow guests to do more individual embellishment.
At Chevy Chase CC, Buchner offers an empanada bar (filled with beef and pepper, heart of palm and tomato, or chicken mole), with the savory pastry pockets fried tableside and presented with an assortment of fresh and cooked salsas.
A La Carte, With a Cart
Known for his Pan-Asian and Mediterranean specialties, Joe Isidori, Executive Chef at the Trump National Golf Courses in Bedminster, N.J. and West Chester, N.Y., likes to incorporate favorites from his a la carte menus into his buffet lineups. “We want to elevate the buffet into the ultimate dining experience,” he says.
In the process, Isidori makes his buffets a learning experience, too. For example, his Pan-Asian theme station offers a culinary tour of Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, China and Japan, featuring items such as braised duck with red coconut curry, chicken samosa with cilantro sauce, and lobster “Hung Shu style” with black beans and oyster sauce. Adding an unexpected service dimension is a dim sum cart, which carries sele
ctions of Chinese steamed and fried dumplings and won tons, along with dipping sauces, to each table.
Isadori also uses the carts to offer tableside service for his Mediterranean antipasto and tapas station, which features selections such as charcuterie and crostini, hummus and tahini with pita, or Spanish anchovies and stuffed grape leaves.
Both the Pan-Asian and Mediterranean stations represent “areas where I’ve been able to take some of my intricate a la carte preparations and institute them in a manner that’s conducive to an interactive food display,” Isidori says. “The antipasto has been a huge success in presentation, variety, ethnicity and most of all, kitchen preparation. It has become a standard for all of our functions here at Trump National.”
Potable Pairings and Sweet Endings
Wine and beer pairings can also bring another level of sophistication to the buffet. Isidori, for example, will partner a raw bar or sushi station with a selection of five or six wine varieties that might range from an Alsatian white to a Burgundian pinot noir. Sometimes, he will choose various types of micro-brewed beers or sakes to complement the buffet fare.
Dessert at the Trump National Golf Courses might be samplings of such signature creations as star anise chocolate soufflé, sweet basil crème brulee with candied ginger, or a variety of mousse varieties, ranging from mascarpone to strawberry to white chocolate.
The piece de resistance, though, is usually a freezer showcase filled with 12 to 16 flavors of gelati, which is Isidori’s specialty. Guests are welcome to select a single scoop, or even create the sundae of their dreams if they wish. But most can’t resist sampling at least several of the exotic varieties, which may include bittersweet chocolate, black mission fig, kumquat, dulce de leche, or a bracing wasabi.
Non-alcoholic fruit juice shooters and little dishes of lemon curd with crispy cookies and other dippers offer a light, refreshing, end-of-meal alternative on Isidori’s buffet table. Another popular buffet dessert among many club chefs is a flowing chocolate fountain, accompanied by pretzels, marshmallows, biscotti, cookies, fruits and other hand-held treats for do-it-yourself dipping.
Southern Comfort Classics
A buffet doesn’t have to be overly upscale or elegant to be appealing in a club setting, however. It also doesn’t have to be reserved for special events or formal dining occasions.
At Limestone Springs Golf Club in Oneonta, Ala., for example, buffet brunches are among the specialties of Amanda Cleghorn, the club’s Executive Chef and Food & Beverage Director. They’ve become so popular that Cleghorn has made the Sunday brunch buffet a regular event, with an ever-changing variety of menus.
For buffets at any meal occasion, Southern-style dishes are a must on the Limestone Springs menus. But while Cleghorn is happy to oblige with such traditional favorites as chicken-fried steak and fried green tomatoes, she isn’t afraid to give the tried-and-true a few tweaks. As a result, crawfish may become a stuffing for flounder, and cheddar grits the basis for a soufflé.
To satisfy a wide range of palates, Cleghorn makes sure that all buffets include at least one “safe dish,” because, she explains, “Some of our members just want fried chicken and mashed potatoes.”
But the buffet formula at this club also always includes something, Cleghorn says, that’s “middle of the road” in terms of its flavor profile (an example is a cold rice salad made with jasmine rice, snow peas, carrots, nutmeg, ginger, coriander and cumin), as well as at least one “more adventurous” selection, such as a Cuban-spiced pork chop with papaya mango salsa.
A buffet menu staple at Limestone Springs is Cleghorn’s “Creole breakfast bread pudding,” made with andouille sausage, Monterey Jack cheese, peppers and onions. Another is her Southern-style twist on the traditional eggs Benedict: a biscuit-based, sausage gravy-smothered savory stacking of country ham and poached egg.
Striking Settings
Décor and layout are also keys to turning buffets from mundane affairs into bona fide events, club chefs say. Instead of one long table with rigid rows of chafing dishes, which can be intimidating and lead to long lines as guests peruse each offering, Buchner at Chevy Chase CC uses a number of smaller tables for his stations, and positions them in semi-circles or other more user-friendly configurations. Serpentine tables also lend graceful lines and encourage flow at Forsgate, according to Williams.
“Some people want to check out all of the stations or skip straight to dessert, but they don’t like to have to break into a line to do it,” Buchner explains.
For themed buffets, Buchner likes to break out whimsical props. One casual event at Chevy Chase featured a “hamburger shack” set-up, where grill chefs made sandwiches to order. For a beach-themed dinner, he designed an interactive dessert station by erecting a giant sand box on the dining room floor and adding a couple of hula-skirted ice cream freezers (filled with grab-and-go goodies), some beach chairs, and some buckets, shovels and other sand toys.
Behind-the-Scenes Benefits, Too
While all of these approaches to buffets have proved to have great appeal to diners, there are clear “backstage” benefits for club F&B operations, too. Redmond, for example, points out that his preference for small-plate action stations means that “You don’t have to worry about food dying in chafing dishes after half an hour, [and therefore] every serving is totally fresh.
“Each serving is also an artistic finished plate,” Redmond notes, “which gives our chefs more creative freedom and satisfaction than they would get simply refilling chafing dishes.”
“Plus,” he adds as a final and perhaps most compelling selling point, a small-plate emphasis means “more control and less waste,” which in turn leads to “a dramatic drop in food costs—on the average of 5 to 6%.”
Low-cost creativity
And even as they break buffets away from traditional long tables, chefs are finding resourceful ways to absorb the need for extra furnishings and equipment. At Limestone Springs, for example, Cleghorn purchases inexpensive slabs of granite in various sizes from a local kitchen countertop manufacturer, to use in her buffet table settings. After washing and sterilizing the slabs, she can then use them in individual settings or stack them into tiers with flowers, fruit or other decorative accents cascading down the sides.
Cleghorn also displays some chafing dishes on risers of various heights, to keep her visuals interesting.
To add warmth and eye appeal to casual buffet settings, she haunts the bargain stores for sales on plates, bowls and other serving pieces “in funky colors, styles and patterns.”
“They look great and, because they cost so little, breakage is no big deal,” she notes.
Summing It Up
• An emphasis on small-plate servings and “action stations” for buffets, vs. traditional chafing-dish setups, keeps food fresher, affords chefs more creativity, and controls waste that can cut food costs by as much as 6%
• Smaller servings and preparation stations also encourage guests to try new dishes, improve interaction between diners and staff, and enhance the entire dining experience through more stimulation of all senses
• Remember to include “safe” and “middle of the road” dishes, in addition to more adventurous ones, to maximize every diner’s opportunity to find someth
ing satisfying in the buffet line.
• Décor, non-linear layouts and creative themes are also keys to turning buffets from mundane affairs into bona fide events.
Menu One —Submitted by Joe Isidori, Executive Chef, Trump National Golf Courses, Bedminster, N.J. and West Chester, N.Y.
Pan-Asian station
Cantonese-style dim sum
A variety of steamed and fried wontons and dumplings, all served with dipping sauces such as creamy ponzu, kim chi flavors, Japanese white miso, Malaysian sweet soy, and spicy Vietnamese siracha.
Chinese and Thai favorites Prawns with pineapple curry Kung pao chicken Mandarin beef with sesame Braised duck with red coconut curry Green curry with fried tofu Beef with satay flavors Chicken samosa with cilantro sauce Lobster “hung shu style” with black beans & oyster sauce
Neo-Japanese favorites and new-style sushi & sashimi
Bigeye tuna with cilantro-yogurt & chili Yellowtail with tahini & cucumber Salmon with avocado, basil & ponzu Assorted new-style ceviche Nova Scotia lobster & pickled mango roll Blue crab meat with Asian pineapple mustard & sweet chili Fried Japanese shoshito peppers Edamame with maldon sea salt Pickle ginger rice balls Grilled miso chicken salad Miso yaki salmon with yuzu Assorted kushi yaki with apricot ginger emulsion
Menu Two —Submitted by Joe Isidori, Executive Chef, Trump National Golf Courses, Bedminster, N.J. and West Chester, N.Y.
Mediterranean antipasto & tapas
Olives, almonds & cheese with preserves Charcuterie & crostini Artichokes & pimentos Spanish anchovies & tunato with French rouille Escabeche & fruit di mare Braised octopus salad Pickled mushrooms & cherry peppers Heirloom tomatoes & caperberries Grilled assorted panini Roasted eggplant salad Israeli cous cous Hummus & tahini with pita Spicy chunky gazpacho Tortilla with potato & onion Stuffed & roasted tomatoes Grape leaves with roasted garlic & yogurt Braised lamb salad with dried fruit Chipolini salad with truffles Panzanella Fava & butter bean salad Chorizo with onions & fresh herbs Figs with ricotta salada and extra-virgin olive oil
Menu Three
—Submitted by Joachim Buchner, Executive Chef, Chevy Chase Country Club, Chevy Chase, Md.
Smoked Salmon Station
Chevy Chase Smoked Salmon sliced by culinarian with Pumpernickel Bread New Potato Cucumber Salad accompanied by Mustard Dill Sauce, Chopped Red Onions, Eggs and Capers
Empanada Bar
Beef and Pepper Empanadas Heart of Palm and Tomato Empanadas Chicken Mole Empanadas, made by culinarian and fried tableside with assortment of fresh and cooked salsas
Mashed Potato Bar
Yukon Gold Mashed Potato Roasted Garlic Mashed Potato Sautéed Small Shrimp with Olive Oil and Fresh Herb Sautéed Wild Mushroom with Shallots and Chive Toppings to include: Crispy Onion Rings, Chive, Bacon Bits, Whipped Soft Butter and Parmesan Cheese
Southern Grits Bar
Cheddar Cheese Grits and Herb and Garlic Grits Sautéed Shrimp with Tomato and Basil Sautéed Chicken Nuggets with Garlic and Chive Toppings to include Soft Whipped Butter, Chopped Parsley, Cheddar Cheese, Tomato, Pepper and Onion Relish
Outdoor Fajitas Station (March through October)
Cooked on grill and sliced to order Beef Fajitas Chicken Fajitas Shrimp Fajitas Soft Flour Tortillas, Refried Beans, Sautéed Onion, Tomato and Pepper Sour Cream, Guacamole and Salsa
Menu Four
—Submitted by Joachim Buchner, Executive Chef, Chevy Chase Country Club, Chevy Chase, Md.
Annual Meeting Dinner
Cold Station
House Smoked Salmon, Hand-Sliced to Order Potato Vegetable Salad Roasted Mushroom and Marinated Olives Parmesan Wheel with Italian Ham and Meats Assorted Bread Display and Crackers
Polenta Station
Crispy Fried Vegetable Polenta Cakes Topped with Barbequed Chicken Homemade Barbeque Sauce Risotto Station Lobster Risotto with Truffle and Leek
Carving Station
Marinated Angus Beef Tenderloin Short Rib Ragout Potato and Root Vegetable Hash
Sautée Station
Sautéed Lemon and Thyme Salmon Medallion Horseradish Mash Potato and Creamed Savoy Cabbage
Menu Five —Submitted by Amanda Cleghorn, Executive Chef and Food & Beverage Director, Limestone Springs GC, Oneonta, Ala.
Sunday Brunch Menu (example 1)
Tossed Garden Salad with Assorted Dressings Fresh Green Beans with Feta and Basil Fresh Seasonal Fruit Grilled Chicken with Artichoke Hearts Farmhouse Eggs Benedict Blueberry Stuffed Baked French Toast Fresh Seasonal Vegetables Cheese Grits Soufflé Assorted Desserts
Sunday Brunch Menu (example 2)
Fresh Seasonal Fruit Display Tossed Garden Salad with Assorted Dressings Bacon, Tomato, Gorgonzola, and Spinach Salad Crawfish Stuffed Flounder Chicken, Mushroom, and Artichoke Florentine Steak and Mushroom Pie Creole Breakfast Bread Pudding Steamed Seasonal Vegetables Wild Rice Assorted Desserts
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