This award-winning event was inspired by Henry David Thoreau who “went to the woods” not to escape life but to live life more deeply. What better way to help our guests slow down, unplug, and immerse themselves in the grandeur of the Wasatch Mountains than an evening of fishing, food, and fun…and a gourmet dinner served in the middle of a picturesque river?
Mesquite-grilled Rocky Mountain trout with peach salsa and a corn puree with blistered tomatoes, chorizo, and sage. Tomahawk ribeye steaks with garlic herb butter and coffee flake salt. Whiskey and roasted bone marrow. Fried Brussels sprouts with bacon and Fresno chilis. House-made bread dipped in melted tallow candles. Morel mushroom bisque. Leather-aged chocolate negronis around a roaring firepit under a canopy of stars.
This immersive experience won the CATIE Award for Best Catered Event of 2024.
If it’s true that we are what we eat, it’s also true that we are how we eat. In the race of everyday life, it’s so easy to treat meals like a pitstop, gulping down our food with little thought or pleasure before rushing on to something else. We wanted to help our guests slow down and taste the experience with all their senses. As we pondered how to use the beautiful space of 4-U Ranch to immerse our guests in this epic adventure, we realized that the river was right there…why not take them all the way in?
As guests arrived, they were invited to surrender their cell phones and immerse themselves in an evening of sylvan delights and culinary bliss. After enjoying champagne, caviar, and other sips and nibbles, they learned to tie their own trout flies, use a casting rod, and hook a cutthroat trout. Dinner was an exquisite affair staged in the middle of the river. It’s amazing how the dining experience is changed when you feel like you’re floating just inches above a rushing current, suspended in space and time. Surrounded by the gentle murmur of water and the evening breeze in the branches of the cottonwoods, all your senses are heightened. The familiar world seems like an almost-forgotten dream, and somehow everything feels more real. The moment seems more poignant, the conversations more genuine, and the food more exquisite.
As the mountain air cooled, guests moved back inside to enjoy sauternes and desserts. The evening ended with guests sipping leather-aged chocolate negronis, roasting s’mores, and chatting into the night. As several guests commented, it was an experience they will never forget.
For this event, the International Caterers Association awarded Culinary Crafts the CATIE prize for Best Catered Event of 2024.
In the world of catering and hospitality, winning a Best Catered Event of the Year CATIE (Catered Arts Though Innovative Excellence) is like winning the Oscar for Best Picture.
We were especially honored because, that same year, we also won the CATIE award for Best Catered Wedding!
As the most award-winning caterer in our state, having won Utah’s Best of State Caterer 27 times, Culinary Crafts has a well-established reputation for superb service and food. We have staged high-end events everywhere from the governor’s mansion to the top of a mountain to the middle of the Bonneville Salt Flats. But pulling off an event in the middle of a river…this was a new one even for us!
But we don’t want to just keep doing what we’ve always done, making delicious food on-site and delivering it with stand-out service. We’ve done that for 40+ years. We know we can’t rest on our laurels, that we’re only as good as our next event, so we are always looking for ways to push the envelope and do what no one has ever done. When it comes to taking care of our guests and giving them an experience like none other, we aren’t afraid to get our hands dirty and our feet wet.
27x winner Utah’s Best of State
24x Best of State Caterer
3x Best of the Best / Hospitality
1x Entrepreneur of the Year