Pizza catering in Vlissegem
At a glance
Small and personal
No minimum number of guests, so even a wedding with only the closest family gets a full evening of aperitivo, pizza rounds and dolci.
Cobbles and old walls
A courtyard keeps the wind out and holds the warmth of the oven. It is one of the cosiest places we know to bake.
Arrival in daylight
Country lanes in the polder are narrow and poorly lit. We drive in during the day, so the drive and the ditches are clearly visible when manoeuvring.
A village where you celebrate at home
Vlissegem lies inland from De Haan and Wenduine, among meadows, fields and winding country lanes towards Nieuwmunster and Zuienkerke. The village itself is not much more than a church with a few houses around it. There are hardly any function rooms; whoever has something to celebrate does it in a relative’s yard or in their own garden.
That gives parties here something homely. You marry at the De Haan town hall, but the dinner takes place in the courtyard where you cycled as a child. A birthday becomes an evening with neighbours and friends at one long table between the stables. For a setting like that a wood-fired oven is a logical choice: warm, simple and without fuss.
How a small wedding unfolds
At an intimate wedding there is no hurry. The guests come from the ceremony, the couple follows a little later after photos in the polder landscape. Meanwhile the Aperitivo waits under the eaves of the stable: warm focaccia, bruschetta, antipasti and a cool glass to toast the couple. By then the fire in the oven has been burning for hours.
When everyone is at the table, we start baking the pizzas, a different variety each time, cut into slices so the platter travels from hand to hand. With a small group the pace can be very personal: an extra round of the bride’s favourite pizza is no problem. Tiramisu and cannoli close the evening as the courtyard grows dark.
Setting up on a farm with a courtyard
A courtyard often has only one entrance, sometimes through a gateway under the farmhouse. We measure up beforehand: the passage for oven and equipment needs to be about two and a half metres wide. If the gateway is narrower, we look for a spot just outside the courtyard, on the meadow side, with a short walk to the tables.
Cobbles are rarely perfectly flat, so for the tent we choose the most even area. Smoke from the fire has to rise freely; under an open canopy or in the open air that is no problem. After the dessert we pack up and everything, rubbish included, leaves the polder with us.
Een echte aanrader! Prestigio Catering, gerund door het enthousiaste duo Chloë en haar vriend Mathieu, verzorgde onlangs de catering op een feestje waar ik bij was. Ze serveerden o.a. zeer lekkere, zelfgemaakte Napolitaanse pizza’s die ter…
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