Bread and Flowers is a catering company based in Salisbury, Wiltshire. We provide food for any occas
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By stripping away formality we have developed a warm, creative, social style of cooking that perfectly complements relaxed, joyful celebrations. The influences of Southern European and Middle Eastern food lend our dishes a depth which, deftly mixed with English classics, results in sensuous food that is perfect for sharing. Surprising combinations, rich jewel colours and sumptuous flavours form th
e heart of your feast and your guests will delight in our delicious, mouth watering dishes. We cook for a wide range of clients and events – from stylish, vibrant parties for global corporate brands to intimate country weddings and private celebrations throughout the south of England, from London to Lands End. Our cosy winter private dining is a speciality, along with our sell-out series of pop-up restaurant events featuring an eclectic selection of inspirational guest chefs. Bread and Flowers’ food shared with family and friends is a richly satisfying experience, a feast which stays in the memory long after the flavours have faded on the tongue
I quite fancy one of these myself right now, it’s 6pm and it’s been a long day. If you’re looking to bring in a bar for your event, then look no further than Cartails and Events limited. They are the business when it comes to getting the party started, keeping the party going and when it comes to the finish, ‘back of the net’.
We still have a few seats available for the Pop up on the 12th & 13th April at Longford Farmhouse - details below, we would love to see you!
WET YOUR WHISTLE ON ARRIVAL
Rhubarb paloma or Rhubarb Spritz
CANAPES
Burnt brisket ends, dill relish. Smokey baba ghanoush, crisp flatbreads. Superstraccia stuffed & deep fried Gordal olives.
FIRST
Whipped feta/ Superstraccia, crushed coriander, fennel seeds and burnt orange, sourdough.
SECOND
Porchetta, Fennel, herbs, lemon Or Grilled Hispi cabbage, Lemon, herb butter, toasted Focaccia Crumb
TABLE SHARING
Blackened Beets and Roasted Carrots. Hasselback potatoes, salsa Verde
Charred Purple Sprouting Broccoli, Chilli, Lemon, radish. Kenson’s leaves, charcoal dressing
THIRD
Pineapple, ginger and Thai basil sorbet Or Chocolate brownie cooked on the bbq, Smoked Milk Ice cream.
Coffee
Friday 12th & Saturday 13th April. 7pm – 11pm. BYO booze no corkage. £65 per head. Longford Farmhouse. Bodenham. Salisbury. SP54EJ
For more details or to reserve a place at the table, please email [email protected]
Or call and speak to Martin 01722 326581. www.breadandflowers.co.uk Instagram
One of my all-time favourite starters, goat cheese with poached rhubarb and lovage, served on a sourdough croute. The full snap, crackle and pop of a starter, crunchy, salty, sweet, tart, vibrant and a combination few people will have tried, but everyone will love.
Outside, looking in, to the inside of the library at St Giles house. We did our first wedding there 10 years ago, before they were even doing weddings. It was for Lord Shaftesbury’s brother and all the food came from the Estate, it was a charming event, I remember we went back the next morning to serve breakfast, Bloody Mary’s spring to mind.
Pretty works at weddings, well any event really. This lovely sharing platter was requested by a couple and built specially for them, crudité, herbs, pistachio & feta dip, beetroot humous. A little sharing platter for four guests, it positively sings.
Here we go again with this super healthy Mediterranean Fattoush salad. It’s all about the quality ingredients, Isle of Wight tomatoes, crispy organic leaves, oh and the amazing salad dressing, and not forgetting the crunchy croutons, and the herbs.
We've made huge inroads into our vegan repertoire over the last 18 months, spurred on by the number of enquiries for entirely vegan or vegetarian menus at events. This dish of Brindisa butterbeans, griddled courgette, green sauce and croutes, is complemented by a stunning 'Superstraccia' from Julienne Bruno, it's like the inside of a burrata spilling over the dish.
Although we work in some splendid stately homes around Wiltshire and Dorset, which are truly sublime, there's something about a traditional marquee that just hits the spot every time.
BREAD AND FLOWERS POP UP. 12th &13th APRIL 2024.
LONGFORD FARMHOUSE.
FOR THE LOVE OF FIRE
We’re getting very hot and bothered about our next pop up and we’re so excited to be sharing our latest passion with you all, cooking on fire. Alicia, our head chef arrived with smoke flowing through her veins last year and she’s taken Martin over to Bristol earlier this year to learn a few tricks from the maestro Genevieve Taylor at the Bristol Fire School. So come along and get your cockles warm
WET YOUR WHISTLE ON ARRIVAL
Rhubarb Paloma or Rhubarb Spritz (vg)
CANAPES
Stuffed and deep fried Gordal olives (vg)
Smokey baba ghanoush, crisp flatbreads.
Burnt brisket ends, dill relish.
LIGHT YOUR FIRE
Whipped Feta/Superstraccia, crushed coriander, fennel seeds and burnt orange on Henderson’s sourdough (vg)
THE WARMING FLAMES
Porchetta, fennel, herbs, lemon.
Or
Grilled Hispi cabbage, lemon, herb butter, toasted focaccia crumb (vg)
TABLE SHARING
Blackened beets and roast carrots (vg)
Hasselback potatoes, salsa Verde.
Charred purple sprouting broccoli, chilli, lemon, radish (vg)
Kenson’s leaves, charcoal oil dressing (vg)
EMBERS
Pineapple, ginger and Thai basil sorbet (vg)
Or
Chocolate brownie, cooked on the BBQ, smoked milk ice cream.
Coffee
We’re looking forward to welcoming you all back to Longford farmhouse.
Doors open at 7.00pm for cocktails and canapes, BYO booze, no corkage.
We’re charging £65 per head, payment required in full, in advance to secure a seat at the table.
To book please email [email protected] and we’ll get back to you with payment details.
Looking forward to setting your night on fire.
Alicia, Bee & Martin
Sometimes simplicity is enough and a vivid green, griddled courgette, drizzled in sublime extra virgin olive oil from southern Spain does it for me. We serve it on crostini with a hint of mint for a refreshing canape, pre-lunch.
What you put in front of people at the dining table says a lot about you, we understand that. It should reflect the occasion, sparkling when it needs to, comforting on other occasions, but always a welcome visitor to that empty space between your knife and fork.
We do robust, creative, exciting, intriguing, surprising, colourful and delightfully flavoursome food for equally exciting occasions. So if that floats your boat, then come on board and we'll help steer your event through the choppy early planning stages to the regatta that is your big day.
One of the original power foods, the humble blueberry and great scattered on breakfast cereal first thing in the morning. And they're still shining, whilst the raspberries have grown beards, and the strawberries are collapsing in on themselves, on they go, like a Duracell battery, recharging your batteries day after day.
You can feel the love and care that has gone into making these potato and beetroot dauphinoise. Cooked the night before in large trays, then cooled and pressed overnight in the fridge, before turning out, cutting to size and reheating just before service. Unctuous.
The carnivore's delight, apple & soy marinated skirt steak with a ginger and spring onion dressing. It brings grown men to tears, of delight that is of course. A few helpings of those, then it's on to the sticky sausages, finishing with our pork belly bite with a plum, ginger and rhubarb relish.
Fresh, local, seasonal, simple, surprising, memorable. That would be my brief for the wedding caterer. And the surprising, memorable element of this simple, fresh, locally reared chicken dish is the drizzle of honey, rosewater and hazelnuts that it's kissed with, ten minutes before it finishes cooking, so when it comes out of the oven, it brings the middle east with it. 'I have never eaten chicken like it' everyone says, delighted, satisfied, replete.
We just want to give a massive shout out to The Pink Café, just outside Newport, Pembrokeshire on the road to Cardigan on the left hand side and just half a mile from Bees parents in Cilgwyn, so unbelievably handy to pop into when we're down in that neck of the woods. The food is always exceptional, with most of the vegetables, herbs and flowers coming directly from their back garden. We try and get down to Wales once a month and can't express enough how lucky we are to have these guys operating locally.
The sharing element at events is still going strong. We like to do a mix of plated and sharing, on account of 8 times out of 10 we're putting out three different main courses, fish, veg and meat, plus a vegan and a gluten intolerant. Plates always look better with less on them, so we can make them look super pretty. Then guests can dive into the sharing side dishes and help themselves to as much or as little as they want. It's quite amazing how appetites vary.
They used to be humble, the humble vegetable, but not any longer, they're rising up and taking back the streets. They are owning the dishes served in restaurants and cafes these days, grown on site in proudly tended patches, not even patches, raised beds, raised to complement their elevated stature in the kitchen these days. Here's a statuesque Savoy, electrified green leaves against a black void, looking like a new planet emerging from space, looking almost sentient, commanding, bossing it. Thinly sliced, blanched and refreshed, it loves to be lightly sautéed in olive oil, butter, garlic and caraway seeds.
Here's a rarity these days, everyone having the same pudding, smashed pavlova or Eton mess. More often than not we serve a selection of pudding pots from a side table, so guests can get up, choose whichever one suits them and then engage in some wedding scale on mingling.
A pretty Persian salad for a Spring wedding. Almost entirely herbs and flowers, with a little sweet cucumber and a light dressing
This sweet slaw, yet another Ottolenghi recipe, is going out every week at the food tastings here at Longford Farmhouse through January and February. Shredded savoy and red cabbage, strips of ripe papaya and mango, caramelised macadamia nuts with mint and coriander. The dressing is to die for, lime juice, lemongrass, chilli, soy sauce and maple syrup cooked down into a syrup and then whisked up with sesame and sunflower oil. It's addictive and however much you eat, you seem to leave the table healthier, and I swear, slimmer.
Thank goodness for a stylist. This table setting matches the book case behind. It's warm and peachy and entirely appropriate for the library at St Giles House, which, just for your information accommodates 120 guests for a wedding breakfast, in case you were considering it for your nuptials.
This picture takes me back to October, Autumn sunshine in the shape of a selection of Isle of Wight heritage tomatoes. We cut them quite chunky, season and drizzle them with good quality olive oil from Brindisa, which incidentally has just doubled in price on account of the seriously bad harvest and subsequent, limited availability of olives last year. Finally a drizzle of chardonnay vinegar, oh and a splosh of homemade pesto, and not forgetting a large dollop of burrata.
Another day, another pudding. Chocolate and cardamom pots with chocolate tuilles, pistachio crumb, raspberry and old blue eyes the borage flower. Borage flowers taste of cucumber for those of you dying to know but just too embarrassed to ask.
Orange marinated, salt cod salad with red onion, kalamata olives, orange segments and marjoram. Classic Spanish, refreshing, reviving and works really well with a chilled glass if fizz.
People are always asking how many canapes to serve at a reception. Our rule of thumb is one for every 15 minutes and as most receptions last about 90 minutes, that adds up to 6 per guest. It's not a figure set in stone, some people have less, some more. Two veg, two fish, two meat works well and don't forget the vegans and the gluten/lactose intolerant. We don't forget them, we always bring a little package along to every event, just in case.
This Diana Henry dish is up there in our top five. Chicken crowns, marinated overnight in onion, ginger, cinnamon, saffron, lemon. Then roasted until golden before being drizzled with honey, rosewater and hazelnuts. It come out of the oven bringing with it the aromas of the entire middle east. We serve it with jewelled Persian rice, a traditional wedding dish from Iran.
Blood orange and rosemary posset with blue borage flowers, a delightful way to finish off any wedding breakfast. We often serve a selection of pudding pots from a side table after the main course. Guests can get up and choose which they prefer, then sit back down to eat it or mill around chatting to other guests.
We'll be starting to look for new recruits any time soon, to join our magnificent front of house team. We have seasoned front of house managers and highly experienced team leaders to guide the new recruits through the preliminaries. So if you are, or know of someone who is keen to jump on board this season, then send us an email - [email protected] It's a lot of fun and you get to work in some incredibly beautiful venues with a really fun team!
Longford Farmhouse, Bodenham
Salisbury
SP54EJ
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I've been to India on many occasions and I have to say the food is absolutely exquisite. What kind of mind would produce a perfectly wonderful aubergine curry, then decide to pour vegetable oil over burning charcoal and cover the whole dish so that it smokes away for 20 minutes to finish it off. We would love to do a Traditional Indian wedding one day. We did cook lunch for 1000 guests at the Facebook Summer Party a few years ago, so we're not too worried about the number of guests.
Then again, the classics aren't classics for no reason, they've earned their place at the table, even if it's just a side dish of these honey coloured fondant potatoes basking in a little olive oil, while they wait for the arrival of the madeira sauce.
Massive tiger prawns are a thrilling treat for most people and they look fabulous topping off a paella Valenciana. We use raw, peeled tigers for our canapes, sauteed in ginger, garlic, olive oil, lemon and coriander.
This is one of our most popular canapes, succulent skirt steak marinated in apple juice and soy sauce with red onion, garlic, black pepper and sesame oil. Griddled a minute either side, thinly sliced and dressed with spring onion, ginger and mirin. We also do it as a starter, served with home made kimchi, it's knock out.
Sauteed greens, and when we say green, we mean green, a big, bold bonanza of beans, sugar snaps, mangetout, peas and shredded spring greens, folded into a warm, garlic flavoured olive oil, Brindisa North and South to be precise, then seasoned and served warm, not too hot. #eventcatering #weddingcatering #breadandflowers #greens #vegetables
By stripping away formality we have developed a warm, creative, social style of cooking that perfectly complements relaxed, joyful celebrations. The influences of Southern European and Middle Eastern food lend our dishes a depth which, deftly mixed with English classics, results in sensuous food that is perfect for sharing. Surprising combinations, rich jewel colours and sumptuous flavours form the heart of your feast and your guests will delight in our delicious, mouth watering dishes. We cook for a wide range of clients and events – from stylish, vibrant parties for global corporate brands to intimate country weddings and private celebrations throughout the south of England, from London to Lands End. Our cosy winter private dining is a speciality, along with our sell-out series of pop-up restaurant events featuring an eclectic selection of inspirational guest chefs. Bread and Flowers’ food shared with family and friends is a richly satisfying experience, a feast which stays in the memory long after the flavours have faded on the tongue
SAS Event & Association Management
The Old George Brewery
