RIO All- Suite Hotel & Casino
For a catering director, hosting a leadership conference for the National Association of Catering Executives (NACE) means bringing your “A” game, and Michelle Polci of Rio All- Suite Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, recently did just that.

“We wanted to really knock their socks off with innovative menus and dramatic presentation,” says Polci. “For example, with meeting breaks, we did themes called Bet on Red; Stick It to Me; and Sugar, Wake Me Up.”

Bet on Red was a morning break featuring banquet tables decked out in flowing red “eyelash” fabric and decorated with tall cylindrical vases filled with cranberries, cherry tomatoes, or whole apples immersed in club soda for shimmer. The menu included candies such as Twizzlers and red M&Ms, a chocolate cone strawberry tree, cranberry trail mix, red tortilla chips with fire-roasted salsa, raspberry tarts, and strawberry bread. Beverages followed suit with options like cranberry juice, strawberry soda, and Red Zinger iced tea.

“The Stick It to Me break was really fun,” says Polci. “We thought of menu items we could make with a stick and served everything on raised platforms of bamboo sticks pressed under Plexiglas.” This “sticky” afternoon break menu included impaled antipasto, fresh fruit kabobs with honey yogurt dressing, almond bar pops, Rice Krispie pops drizzled in chocolate, cheesecake pops, frozen bananas, Häagen-Dazs bars, and frozen fruit bars.

Another break, Sugar, Wake Me Up, was an ode to the morning gods—sugar and coffee. “We had tablecloths in dark bronze, and coffee beans were scattered on the table and also stacked into geometrical vases,” says Polci. “We served the real thing with options like Frenchpressed coffee, espresso, and tea brewed to order.” The menu consisted of such sweet treats as cranberry and blueberry scones with clotted cream, shortbread, coffee cake, cinnamon buns, and biscotti.

Polci’s efforts didn’t disappoint. “The attendees all snapped pictures of the spreads, hoping to maybe recreate something similar at their own properties. It was a nice compliment.”

Hotel Monteleone — “A large part of New Orleans’ culture is our food,” says Eydie Barber, catering director at Hotel Monteleone. “When people book a meeting here, we want to make sure they’re still experiencing New Orleans, even though they’re stuck inside all day.” To that end, Hotel Monteleone features themed meeting breaks like French Market, in which a long buffet table becomes a display for fresh produce and other wares one might find wandering the streets of New Orleans. Whole heads of cauliflower are stacked on the table, along with whole pineapples and cantaloupes; bunches of asparagus and bananas; apples, lemons, limes, grapefruit, oranges, and even onions.

“We also have Louisiana Creole Tomatoes right in their crates. In season, they are so sweet you can eat them just like an apple,” Barber adds.

French Market Coffee & Chicory is a company that has been a mainstay in New Orleans since 1890, so amidst the fruits and vegetables, the buffet table holds branded sacks of coffee, coffee mugs, trays, buckets, and porcelain tiles. At one end, wicker baskets overflow with stacks of the famous Hubig’s fruit pies, which are individually wrapped fried turnovers made fresh daily by the Simon Hubig Pie Company. Flavors include apple, lemon, peach, pineapple, chocolate, coconut, and sweet potato.

“People absolutely go nuts for these pies, and they are very New Orleans. We also offer traditional, plain powdered sugar beignets and assorted fresh fruit with honey yogurt dip.”

To transport meeting attendees outside the city to the slower pace of the bayou, the hotel offers the Bayou Breeze break. A backdrop of fish netting accents tables decorated with gingham, burlap, live ferns, and wicker baskets, where tiny plastic alligators, crawfish, and frogs peek out from among sugar cookies, pralines, and pecan diamonds. These can be washed down with a can of New Orleans-founded Barq’s root beer or a bottle of the Republic of Tea’s Raspberry Quince iced tea, which are iced over more fish netting and guarded by cranes, lizards, and other plastic bayou wildlife.

“Meeting-goers [a lot of corporate business and especially pharmaceuticals] love our themed breaks because they get to step outside the meeting and escape a little,” says Barber. “Hands down, the most requested break is the French Market. I’d like to say it’s because of our artful presentation, but you don’t know how many people just ask for ‘the one with those pies.’”