With over a decade of experience catering events across London and beyond, we know that the key to a successful festive event is keeping guests spirits high. And nothing sparks joy at a festive get-together quite like seeing that first tray of beautifully-crafted canapés coming your way!
Canapés do so much more than just feed your guests; they create excitement, whet the appetite for what’s to come and add an air of sophistication to any celebration. They’re also perfect for creating a warm, interactive atmosphere, allowing guests to circulate and mingle, rather than being restricted to a table and only the people placed directly in front of you.
Whether you’re hosting an office party, an intimate gathering with friends and family, or a grand winter wedding in London, canapés can be the answer to keeping festive parties fun, exciting and memorable.
The festive season may be filled with joy and cheer but let’s face it, it can quickly become too much. With work, family and friends all competing for your time, you’ve often already sat down to several, three-course, same-old roast turkey dinners before you’ve even hit mid-December!
Enter canapés, the bite-sized antidote to Christmas dinner fatigue.
At Social Pantry, designing festive canapés is an art that we don’t take lightly. With thirteen years of catering experience under our belts, we know exactly what’s needed during the Christmas period – exciting, impactful dishes that are big in flavour but small in size, so that guests can sample a whole range of delicious, seasonal delights without ever getting bored.
As for the ‘festive’ element, we’re all for celebrating the season, but we’re not about repeating the same old turkey, cranberry and mince pie trope. Instead, our festive canapés make the most out of winter’s best produce, drawing on our close relationships with local suppliers and our zero-food-waste-to-landfill approach to create inventive bite-sized beauties designed to deliver serious satisfaction, without relying on the same old traditional ingredients and flavour combinations. Think Venison Fillet with Horseradish Aioli & Crispy Tarragon; Sea Trout Gravlax with Whipped Crème Fraiche & Pickled Kohlrabi; and Cauliflower & Sparkenhoe Red Leicester Cheese Croquette with Damson Jelly.
Canapés are a great option for all kinds of events, whether it’s to add a sophisticated touch to gatherings with family and friends, impress clients at corporate Christmas parties, or keep guests content at winter weddings, they bring a bit of extra sparkle to festive celebrations . At Social Pantry, we’ve created canapés for events big and small, and can provide festive canapé catering anywhere in London or the wider UK, whether you’re celebrating in an iconic venue or a private home.
Our festive canapés have been thoughtfully designed to stand out amongst the crowd and add a bit of theatre to your event. We’ve taken some of our favourite seasonal ingredients from our best local suppliers and combined them in new and creative ways to come up with a menu of bite-sized festive show-stoppers.
Whether you love a bite that’s satisfying and crispy, light and fresh, or oozing with molten cheese, there’s something on our festive canapé menu for you…
It wouldn’t be Christmas without cheese, and we’re lucky to have some truly fantastic cheesemakers in the UK. We champion two of our favourites in this year’s festive canapé menu. First we make a molten cheese custard using Baron Bigod, a creamy British brie from Fen Farm Dairy, which we serve on sweet Brioche with a tangy Walnut Ketchup and Blackberry Ketchup. Next, we make our crunchy Cauliflower Cheese Croquettes with Sparkenhoe Red Leicester, a buttery, nutty cheese from Leicestershire’s Sparkenhoe farm. This is served with a sweet-sharp Damson Jelly to cut through the richness.
At Social Pantry, we’re passionate about tackling environmental issues by creating more fully plant-based dishes on our menus, without ever scrimping on flavour. This year, for our vegan festive canapé, we’ve combined a crispy Celeriac Rosti with tangy Pickled Walnut and earthy Raisin & Parsley Pesto.
We’re big fans of smoked salmon at Social Pantry but this year we’ve swapped salmon for English Trout, which we source sustainably via ChalkStream from the Test and Itchen Rivers in Hampshire. We cure it, Gravlax-style and serve with Whipped Creme Fraiche and Pickled Kohlrabi.
With sustainability at the heart of what we do at Social Pantry, we have reduced the amount of meat on our festive menus in order to minimise our environmental impact. Any meat that we do serve has been ethically sourced via suppliers who champion regenerative agriculture and British produce, sourcing from farms as local to us as possible. This year, our festive canapé menu heroes British Venison, which we serve with a punchy Horseradish Aioli and Crispy Fried Tarragon. We’ve also swapped traditional Christmas gammon for Speck, a lighter cured ham which we serve on a crunchy Rye Croute, topped with Apple & Celeriac Remoulade.
We love a good dessert here at Social Pantry HQ, and we pride ourselves on putting the same love and care into designing our sweet canapés as our savoury ones. Whether you want something light and fruity, warm and spicy, or rich and chocolatey, there really is something for everyone on this year’s festive dessert canapés menu. Highlights include Blackberry Curd Meringue Pie with Toasted Hazelnuts; Apple Cake with Chestnut Cream & Linseed Caramel and Dark Chocolate & Tiramisu Tart.
Planning a festive get-together, corporate Christmas party, winter wedding or launch event? Get in touch with one of our dedicated events planners to order your festive canapé catering.
Email: enquiries@socialpantry.co.uk
Telephone: 020 8871 1949
We offer a range of different festive canapé catering options, depending on your budget and venue. No kitchen? No problem. We have a selection of crowd-pleasing cold canapés which don’t require cooking on-site, so you can still wow guests without the need for an oven.
If you do have a kitchen – or space for us to set up one – at your event venue, we’ll move our equipment and team of Social Pantry chefs into the space on the day of the event to take care of all the preparation, cooking, heating and plating. Our front of house team will also be on hand to circulate the canapés around the venue, ensuring all guests get a chance to try each one. We’ve designed our canapés to be eaten in just one bite, so there’s no need for cutlery, however napkins will be provided.
We serve our festive canapés on a variety of different platters, boards and trays to keep things interesting for guests. For hosts wanting to really make an impact, we offer extra styling for an additional cost, including providing flower arrangements or other decorations in and around each canapé platter. Or for anyone wanting something completely unique for an event, we offer that too, whether that’s creating food and drinks to a specific colour theme to match a company’s branding, or designing bespoke bites to evoke a memory for a couple getting married.
Hosting a late-night party? Sometimes canapés just don’t quite cut it for guests wanting to dance into the small hours. So, we also offer a menu of bowl foods, designed to satisfy the hungriest revellers, eaten with just a bowl and spoon, standing up, so they never have to leave the dancefloor! These include dishes like Pumpkin & Ricotta Tortellini with Brown Butter & Ricotta Salata; Mac and Cheese with Black Truffle & Crispy Celeriac and Braised Short Rib with Horseradish Mash & Red Cabbage Purée. Alternatively, we also offer the option to add on our Christmas Grazing Station – an impressive, twelve foot long table made up of London’s finest charcuterie, cheeses and nibbles that guests can help themselves to throughout the night.
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I cannot thank you enough! Friday was so wonderful. The food and service were on point and the venue looked beautiful. You and your team really did a phenomenal job and looked after us so well! You will definitely be the first point of call should I need a caterer in the future!
Social Pantry provides catering services primarily within London, but regularly provides event catering in the wider UK, from the Home Counties all the way up to Scotland! From festivals in Suffolk, to two-week event catering in Staffordshire and a one-day launch event in Edinburgh, we can cater it all. If you’re looking for a dedicated event caterer to provide festive canapé catering in London or beyond, please enquire with our dedicated events team.
Yes. We cater for events of all types from day to night and from Monday through to Sunday. When your festivities start is when our work begins, so just let us know what day and time you’d like your festive canapés served and we’ll sort the rest.
We cater for events of all sizes, and will do our utmost to accommodate your requirements if there is a limited budget, but we do have a minimum spend. This is to ensure that we can continue to sustainably source our quality produce, and so that we can deliver a luxury service we can be proud of.
Absolutely! Our sustainability-focused menus are naturally plant-rich and we offer extensive vegetarian and plant-based options. We can also accommodate dietary requirements when requested in advance such as dairy, wheat, soy or nut free diets and cultural requirements like halal and kosher.
For the smoothest service at your event, it’s important that we are given the final guest numbers at least 10 days before the event takes place. Allergen and dietary requirements, event timings and any other logistical information is required at least 5 working days before the event.
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