An Interview with Boulevard Events

Boulevard Events are an award-winning caterer based in East London, who have been creating incredible food experiences since 1988, and is still family owned to this day. Boulevard Events have a passion for outstanding food and an acute knowledge of flavours, which is the key to their success and the first thing they look for in a chef. The undeniable talent and camaraderie within the Boulevard Events kitchen team is fundamentally why they are now one of London’s best caterers, led by MD Daniel Maher.

What is the history behind Boulevard Events, how did it start?

"We started as a restaurant that my parents owned in Hackney back in 1988. It wasn’t until the early 2000s that my parents decided to solely focus on catering. We first started catering for events in 2006 and five years later me, my brother and my sister took over. Since then, we've been completely focused on events."

What are your strengths as a catering company?

"The people! I think that if you’re a caterer in London and you’re not providing exceptional food, then you won’t survive. Therefore, it takes more than the food in order to excel in this industry. Although we do provide incredible food, ultimately our job is to enhance guest experiences through the food we create and the service we provide."

You have mentioned your strong focus on service, how do you achieve this?

"It is important to get to know the clients you are working with. Don’t take things at face value. Instead, you need to find out as much as you can about the company you’re working with. This allows us to be able to go above and beyond the base level.?Our team is vital for this as we need them to reflect this in the food they create and the service they offer. The training we provide and the culture we have created within our workforce is what makes this possible."

You have mentioned your bespoke event packages on your website, could you elaborate on what these are?

"We get asked to do a lot of different events by clients. For example, this week a client requested Ugandan and Chinese food stations. Although we can’t offer a fully authentic Chinese or Ugandan dining experience, we can tailor our ingredients and dishes to do our own take on these cuisines. To tailor these tastes to the client we will ask for feedback on our tasting dishes, as well as eat in certain restaurants they may recommend. This helps us build up an image of what the client wants, which we then use to create our bespoke event packages."

With December approaching, Christmas Parties are beginning to be booked, what do your Christmas Party Packages include.

"Our Christmas packages are traditional; people always gravitate towards seated meals and bowl food; they also always request Turkey. However, we do like to do things differently over Christmas and we're always open to trying new things. Our packages will change depending on the venue we work at. However, in most cases a Christmas Party Package will include seated meals with traditional Christmas food."

What are the challenges you face in this industry?

"We face the same challenges as everyone else such as inflation and supply issues. In catering specifically, input costs are at 20% due to energy and inflation, this greatly affects our profit margins. However, we’re able to rely on the skill sets of our team in order to work out how we can efficiently use ingredients to save costs. Challenging times like this create innovation and help improve sustainability, we need to be less wasteful and more efficient with energy and food. Therefore, the challenges we are facing have solutions which are in line with what we are currently trying to improve."

What does the future hold for Boulevard Events?

"Every business wants to grow and we're no different, but we have to do this the right way and be proud of what we're doing. Catering is a hard industry, so you need to love and believe in the work you are doing. Because were a family business we focus on our core values and if we grow, it has to be in line with these values. Sustainability is also a big deal for us and because were in the food industry, there is a lot of scope to make a big impact."