St Anne's College conference and catering team recently sampled a plant-based tasting menu. The event was catered for by a company called Table 13, who specialise in plant-based food using local and seasonable ingredients.
The team at St Anne's really enjoyed the event! Read about their experience below...
"On March 29th, we were delighted to welcome Georgia Gallacher, owner of plant-based Oxford supper club Table 13, to St Anne’s College to cook a 9-course tasting menu. The purpose of the visit was to inspire our caterers in their quest to become more sustainable and to cook more innovatively using seasonal, plant-based ingredients.
Georgia started Table 13 in 2021 as a lockdown project. The name refers to the idea that “table 13” historically doesn’t exist in restaurants, for reasons of superstition. As Georgia saw it, the art form of vegan food is almost as underrepresented in the catering world as the legendary table 13. Georgia has worked in hospitality for 10 years; with Table 13, she wanted to make seasonal and sustainable plants the focus of her cookery and make the art her own.
St Anne’s Head Chef, Ben Gibbons, commented that he wants St Anne’s to move more towards the zero-waste, seasonal model Georgia uses in her cookery.
Georgia’s menus change monthly, with the exception of the bread course, which stays the same. However, the bread is infused with locally sourced beer, which does change on a monthly basis.
The menu served on March 29th began with a carrot purée and a vegan twist on colcannon. Further courses included a root vegetable and lapsang souchong tea with garlic, and a potato dish centred around wild garlic which is currently in season; Georgia even uses the ash of the allium to prevent food waste. Later courses included tagine flavours within a plant based doughnut; hispi topped with walnut purée with walnuts from Georgia’s garden; and a deliciously surprising butternut squash sorbet as a sweet dish. A dark chocolate dessert imitated an Irish coffee. Finally, leftover carrots from the first course were made into a plate of beautifully arranged petit fours.
The team had a wonderful afternoon tasting Georgia’s cooking and hearing her inspiring comments on why she chooses to cook this way. We hope to see more plant-based innovation from St Anne’s kitchen in coming months."
