Catering • 6 min read
Catering trends for 2027
Shorter menus, longer tables, local growers and a serious late-night offering.
Event catering in the UK is moving away from the three-course template toward something looser and more generous — but the shift is being driven by cost control as much as fashion.
Feasting and family service
Sharing platters down the centre of long tables cut plating labour, reduce waste and get guests talking across the table. They also handle dietary requirements gracefully, because guests self-serve from a spread rather than waiting for a separate plate to arrive.
Vegetables at the centre
Not vegetarian by default, but menus where the vegetable dish is the one people remember. It is cheaper per head, it travels better in warm weather, and it lets caterers buy seasonally from growers within a few miles of the venue.
- Hyper-seasonal menus that change five times a year
- Live cooking stations — fire pits, wood ovens, hand-rolled pasta
- Zero-waste kitchens with agreed donation of surplus
- Late-night food that is genuinely good, not just filling
Talk to your caterer about the kitchen
The single biggest constraint on any event menu is the kitchen available on site. A dry-hire venue may need a full field kitchen, refrigerated trailer, water supply and waste plan — costs that belong in the catering budget from day one. Ask for a site visit before the menu is finalised, and let the caterer design to the kitchen they will actually have.
