We have cooked in some interesting places.

Over twenty years, we have built a kitchen in a lot of rooms that were not designed to have one.

A gallery at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. The Children's Theatre. The grand foyer of Minnesota Orchestra Hall. A Porsche dealership. A glass blowing studio. A working farm.

Every one of those events required the same thing: showing up to a space that was not a restaurant and making it perform like one. The equipment, the smallwares, the setup, the breakdown, all of it travels with us. We arrive early, we assess what we have to work with, and we build the event around it. The guests arrive to something that feels effortless. What it took to make it that way happened before they walked in.

That is the part most people never see.

Last winter we catered a holiday party at a barn in the western suburbs. In a blizzard. No heat. Limited water. We brought in a full kitchen tent, running water, propane heaters, and convection ovens. The guests had no idea. The guests—many CEOs—gave us hugs on the way out.

That is what twenty years of off-site cooking actually looks like.

In private homes, we work within the kitchen that exists, however large or small, and build the menu around what the space can do. At larger venues, we bring everything the event requires and configure it to the room. Either way, the goal is the same: food that arrives hot, at the right moment, without anyone in the room having to think about how it got there.

There is a moment before every event, just before the guests walk in, when I know everything is right. The tables are set. The candles are lit. The front staff is relaxed and ready. The kitchen is quiet. There is a particular stillness to it that only happens when every detail has been handled. That moment is what we are working toward from the minute we arrive.

If you have a venue in mind and want to understand what we can do in it, Joan is your first call. Some of our best events have started with someone saying they did not think the space would work. Reach out. We’re here.

Ready when you are,

Philip Dorwart
Founder and Executive Chef,
Create Catering and the Dining Studio