We spoke to Head of Kitchen Operations at National Liverpool Museums, James Behan, about his process behind event catering and how he designed a menu to preview an exhibition curated by National Liverpool Museums.
Hi James! Tell us a bit about your career journey and how you ended up in your current role.
I’ve been a chef for 20 years. I trained in London in Westminster Kingsway College on a three-year diploma, and then worked in restaurants and contract catering in London and abroad. I relocated to Liverpool and landed at National Museums Liverpool as sous chef and have been promoted twice during my time here – once to head chef, and now into my current role as head of kitchen operations.
What are the main differences between catering for large scale events, compared to when you were cooking in restaurants?
The biggest difference between what we do as an events company and a restaurant is the lead times, we know we’ve got longer to create an experience. Although restaurants can be pre-booked, you don’t know what’s going to be sold until it’s happening. We do a variation of events so we can do a bespoke fine dining dinner in one of our galleries for 20 people, but we can also do a dinner for up to 600 people in some of our spaces, often with bespoke menus.
Tell us about the menu you created for the preview of the exhibition, Bees: A Survival Story?
We always start by discussing the original brief or concept idea. We’ll then take that concept and create and work dishes into it to suit the theme the client is looking for.
The brief here was to use inspiration from the natural world and highlight how important bees are for the planet by using ingredients and produce which bees were essential in terms of pollination, we served canapes that were inspired by this. We served fresh radish pods served with nutmeg and puffed grains, a whole radish served as a whole glass to replicate a potted plant and represent how the plant would be grown. There were also rice paper rolls served with edible flowers and fresh herbs and a simple Vietnamese dressing, and they consisted of very clean flavours. We also served bouquet cones which was a herb emulsion, popcorn shoots, and edible flowers.