Great food, fantastic service, unrivalled insight. Meet Amadeus, the caterer that brings more to the table. Bringing more to the table

 By Wayne Hancox, F&B Manager at The ICC

A fork buffet for 3000! No request is too large for us and that's exactly what we did when we catered for the opening of Annual Congress of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) 2011 at the ICC,Birminghamwhich welcomed over 5000 delegates to the city.

 It took 12 months of planning and 90 staff to deliver the feast which was themed to showcase great British food. We took the best of the UK and offered everything from creamed leeks with baby dumplings finished with Welsh Caerphilly cheese, Lamb in Irish stout and rustic root vegetable hot pot, Scottish Neeps and Tatties to strawberry and raspberry Eton mess with over sized meringues and Welsh caramel and honey cake. Many of the delegates were international and so the pressure was onto deliver a flavour of our wonderful country.

 The event took place across the main areas of the ICC including the mall and registration areas and we filled every available space; even displaying the menu on our digital screens! The buzz was great on the night with a Scottish piper and Irish dancers adding to the flavour. Delegates really responded to the food which is wonderful after all that planning and we had a great time seeing our hard work come together in such a spectacular way.

 Meanwhile other members of the team have been busy particularly Simon Hellier, - our Executive Head Chef at the ICC - who co-ordinated a gastronomic feast like no other recently when he led The Birmingham Chefs Alliance Dinner. The event saw seven ofBirmingham's finest chefs' work together for the launch of Birmingham Food Fest. Simon and his team also catered for 1000 at the Birmingham Post's business awards where colleagues from Amadeus were awarded the Birmingham Post's Hospitality (Leisure & Events) award. All in all a busy time for everyone!

By Kevin 'Buzz' Magee

Our new, contemporary food offer for the NEC has proved to be a hit with visitors. The deli style sandwiches, sushi and rustic pies, plus delicious desserts and cakes have all been selling well and the feedback has been great.

With thousands of visitors on site at Autumn Fair and the Dairy Event and Livestock Show there have been lots of hungry visitors to feed!

Autumn Fair visitors favoured fish and chips and the new desserts, whilst at The Dairy Event and Livestock Show - which attracts lots of male farmers - it was of course the rustic pies that went down well; especially my favourite - the prime beef and root veg one! But they weren't so interested in the desserts - do farmers have sweet tooths?!

This new offer is now being rolled out at the GLEE exhibition which is not anything to do with the television show but a trade show for the garden, landscaping, leisure and pet industries. I wonder if the new deli-style sandwiches will temp them or the sushi?

As we progress with rolling the new offer out across more shows at the NEC we'll be continually analysing and tweaking where necessary, adding different items depending on the audience.

It's always a bit nerve-wracking launching something new, but all our hard-work and research has definitely paid off and I'm delighted with the responses we received.

Feeding politicians...The ICC gets ready to welcome the Liberal Democrats Autumn Conference

By Craig Hancox, Amadeus' Food & Beverage Manager at the ICC

With just a couple of days to go we're in full swing preparing for the Lib Dems arrival.

We're expecting more than 7,500 delegates and it's not just their appetite for politics that the ICC will be feeding - the catering team from Amadeus will be delivering a whole range of food and beverages throughout, which will be equivalent of roughly six months worth of events over four days! This is by no means easy and I know this because I guess I can say... I've been there and done that... when they held their spring party conference with us in 2010 and in that same year we also hosted the Conservative party conference.

It really takes military organisation, expert attention to detail and lots of ingredients to feed this many delegates at a conference this size: we expect to be serving 20,000 cups of coffee made from 1,100 packets of Fair Trade coffee; 1,800 bottles of fruit juice; and, 1,300 handmade cakes! To deliver on this scale means 175 catering staff are involved including 30 chefs, 100 food service assistants and 15 catering managers.

In order to keep organised the venue is split into four different zones and each one colour-coded and managed by a separate team.

In addition to the main delegate catering we are creating a catering concept area in Hall 4, the main exhibition area,  where delegates can choose from a range of fresh fillings to create their own deli-style sandwich and opt for a healthy fresh fruit smoothie of their choice.

As well as the main conferences there's going to be 200 fringe meetings and ninety per cent of those will have some element of catering such as a drinks reception, lunchtime buffet or breakfast seminar - to deliver on this scale requires a fantastic team and while we've all worked really hard over these last nine months from when the planning began, it's these next few days that will require us all to go that extra mile to make the event the best it can be.

Now I'm really excited and can't wait to see it all in place and operating.   

We're just about to trial our new retail food offer for the NEC at Autumn Fair - a trade show that's going to attract around 35,000 hungry visitors!

With things always changing it's key to be on top of the trends, so Alyson Cawley, Interim Managing Director and Paul Gould, Group Executive Head Chef, set about some market research earlier this year. 

The team took some trips around the UK, where they were able to look at the trends and find out what's popular elsewhere and together with the research come up with the new ideas.

Paul and I had some initial ideas too that were brought to life in a cook-off, and along with the team, we were able to produce a great menu which we hope the customer will love, including rustic pies (the prime beef and root veg one is my personal favourite!) and beer battered cod as some of the main options, and deli style sandwiches and sushi as lighter meal options. And not forgetting the sweet treats...there's some fantastic cakes and desserts to round it off.

And to make things even easier for our customers we've improved the signage in our restaurants and utilised more visuals to showcase the food on offer that day.

We've already presented the new retail food offer internally and got some great feedback. It highlighted a few things that needed tweaking and we've made certain adaptations to make the offer the best we can. 

I'm now really excited to see the reaction it receives at the show. 

written by Kevin 'Buzz' Magee.

Find out more about Buzz and our Chefs.

It's the 27th July 2011 and we cannot believe it is one year to go until team Amadeus will be in full swing at the 2012 Olympics! A lot of people have been asking exactly what we will be doing at the Olympic Park so here are some interesting facts... 

Since the Olympic Park North catering contract award to Amadeus earlier this year, we have been busy establishing our project head office at the NEC. A string of high level appointments have been made and the project team, led by Andrew Taylor, Project Operations Director, now numbers six strong, with two further deputy directors being sought over the next few months.

Much work is already underway, with park north catering footprints being agreed and full product listings and food specifications being developed in time for a mammoth food tasting very soon to finalise these.

Over the course of the next year and a half our project blog will give a sneaky insight into the incredible and complex planning progress for our contribution to this amazing event.

We look forward to sharing our journey with you along the way.

OPNPT
(Olympic Park North Project Team)

And if you're thinking of popping the question this Valentine's Day, romance is the way forward - complete with a fairytale wedding to follow. You can leave all the catering to Darren and his team at the stunning 18th Century art gallery of Compton Verney set in more than 120 acres of Grade II listed classical parkland, with lakes, cedars, classical architecture and a sweeping approach to provide the perfect backdrop.

Hagley Hall is another alternative, a beautiful 18th Century mansion and one of the last Palladian houses to be built in England, completed by the stunning surroundings of the Clent Hills. In sharp contemporary contrast, Austin Court is a Georgian Grade II listed building in the heart of Birmingham with a modern design with a historic twist. The landscaped courtyard and stunning canal-side views will provide a memorable backdrop to your special day.  Happy Valentine's Day!

"Just remember the three DON'Ts and you'll be fine. Don't overcomplicate - you'll only get yourself stressed. Don't try and wing it either- follow the recipe and practice beforehand. And finally, don't spend all your time concentrating on the food - it's your guest that is the most important thing on the evening."

If you have limited time - and skill, my best advice is to stick to what you know. A special occasion is not the time to throw caution to the wind but to take your level/style of cuisine into consideration. Asian dishes are more difficult than Italian pasta of Fettuccine Alfredo with Asparagus if you're going to do international cuisine try and buy authentic ingredients and sauces from genuine suppliers.

"If you're worried about things going wrong or your other half not liking what you cook- then stop fretting and start listening.  You can do a mini-practice run beforehand and take note what your partner's favourite meals are. It could be as simple as fish and chips. Then your chances of things going wrong will be much less!."