A proper plate of food eaten standing up, with one hand. Bowl food is what to serve when you want people moving and talking rather than seated for two hours — drinks parties, corporate receptions, launches, and the evening half of a wedding.

The menu

• Classic Sausage and Mash — Newmarket Musk Sausages, Creamy Mash and Red Onion Gravy
• Luxury Fisherman’s Pie — Smoked Haddock, Salmon, Scallop and King Prawns with Spinach in a Lemon and Wholegrain Sauce
• Thai Green Curry — Aromatic Thai Green Chicken Curry, Sticky Rice, Chilli and Ginger
• Summer Vegetable Risotto — Risotto of Asparagus, Baby Broad Beans, Petit Pois and Mint, Parmesan Crisp
• Sea Bass with Lemon Butter — Sweet Potato Puree and Crispy Pancetta

How many

Three bowls per guest replaces a light meal; five replaces dinner. Serve one variety at a time so the room keeps moving and nobody is choosing from a table.

Front of house carry and clear continuously. That is the whole trick: bowl food fails when the empties pile up on window sills.

Where it works

Corporate receptions and networking, where seating a room kills the conversation you paid for. Drinks parties in a house. Late food at a marquee wedding where guests are already standing.

Allergens

All fourteen declared allergens are listed against each dish on request, and we ask for every dietary requirement in writing before the tasting. Our kitchen handles nuts, gluten, dairy, egg, fish, shellfish, soya, celery, mustard, sesame, lupin, molluscs and sulphites, so we cannot guarantee any dish is free from traces. (gf) gluten free · (gfo) gluten free on request · (v) vegetarian · (ve) vegan · (vo) vegetarian on request Reeves Events holds a 5-star food hygiene rating.

Why bowl food works when nothing else does

There is a specific problem bowl food solves: a room full of people who are standing, holding a drink, and talking to somebody they have not seen for two years. They are hungry, but nobody wants to stop the conversation, sit down, or negotiate a knife and fork while standing up.

A canapé is one mouthful and leaves people hungry. A buffet makes them queue and sit. Bowl food is a proper hot dish, in something that can be held in one hand and eaten with a fork, brought round rather than queued for. It is the only format that genuinely feeds a standing room.

How much is enough

The mistake almost everybody makes is under-ordering. Three bowls per person reads generously on paper and is a light lunch in practice. Four to five is a meal. If bowl food is replacing dinner rather than accompanying drinks, plan for five and something sweet.

The second mistake is spreading it too thin across the evening. Bowls should come in waves with gaps between them, not trickle for three hours. People should notice food arriving.

Where it suits

Drinks receptions and launches where the room never sits down. Wedding evening food, particularly where the day meal was early. Corporate parties where people are meant to circulate rather than be seated in fixed groups. Milestone birthdays where the guest of honour wants to talk to everybody.

Where it does not suit: a long formal dinner, or a room with a lot of elderly guests who would genuinely rather sit down. Both are better served by a sharing table.

Service and staffing

Bowl food is staff-intensive and that is the whole point. It only works because somebody is carrying it round continuously; the moment it gets set down on a table it becomes a bad buffet.

That means more front of house than a seated meal of the same size, and it is worth knowing that when comparing quotes. A cheap bowl food quote is usually a plan to leave the trays out.

Related: party and event catering, corporate events, and canapés for the hour before.

The bowl itself matters

It sounds like a detail and it is not. A bowl that is too deep means people cannot see what they are eating; too wide and it needs two hands. Too hot to hold and it gets put down somewhere it should not be. The right vessel is the difference between a format that works and one that irritates people all evening.

We use proper bowls rather than disposable ones wherever the venue allows it. It changes how the food reads more than the recipe does, and at a wedding or a company evening that is worth the washing up.

What goes in them

Anything that holds its temperature and does not need cutting. Braises, curries, risottos, pasta, slow-cooked meat with something underneath it to catch the sauce. Fish works if it is robust. What does not work is anything that needs to be eaten the instant it is plated, because a bowl carried across a room has already lost that argument.

It should be a proper portion. A bowl the size of a large canapé is a canapé in a bowl, and people notice.