Monday, July 6, 2009

PAWS Dinner with Style

The 5th Annual Chefs’ Dinner for PAWS (formerly Dinner with STYLE) was held on Monday, June 29th. It brought chefs and patrons together for an interactive evening of food, fun and fundraising. The Hyatt Regency Philadelphia at Penn’s Landing was the venue, and MODA teamed up with two of Philly's best chef's creating decor to highlight their cuisine.
This was a sold out event where local chef's were paired up with 12 guests per chef. We had the opportunity to design for both Cuba Libre and 1225 Raw Sushi & Sake Lounge. Once you check out these menus you'll be booking reservations.

We made a special trip to the New York flower market to select the perfect flowers for each restaurant that morning, and headed straight to the Hotel and designed them. Sofia Negron swung by to capture a few details for us, here are a few quick shots from her...stay tuned for more!
Cuba Libre
Cuba Libre's Chef Guillermo Pernot presented custom designed dishes that are not even available on the Cuba Libre Menu. He used the opportunity to showcase his creativity and play around with some different, less traditional dishes. The guests especially loved the hot & sour lobster soup – huge hit!

For this chef we designed the narrow tables to be tall bar height, dressed in this gorgeous red taffeta "Cirque" linen surrounded but tall Fruitwood Chivari Bar Stools. Rattan chargers greeted the guests with the menu and evening program.

The tables reached even higher with Red Monstera Leaves and Giant Sellom Philodendron Leaves creating a canopy over the guests. Gloriosa lilies and Diplocyclos (also know as the lollipop climber or marble vine) were details looped and trailing down the tall glass vases.




1225 Raw Sushi & Sake Lounge

Raw based their designs around a huge light up table that Chef Sam Yoon prepared and served from. You can get these treats from the restaurant, I recommend grabbing a table at the outside courtyard seating area and sipping a little Sake. The have over 50 different types of sakes - the biggest selection in the city, if not the east coast!

We built upon the lighted bar theme with red cocktail cubes on each corner that hosted our tall black vases. These were filled with fluffy Cotinus Coggygria (also known as 'Smoke Bush') with it's purple-pink plumes and purple leaves. Towering out of this were huge seven foot tall red Haliconias and black lacquered six foot bamboo. Their placement in front of the mirrored wall was stunning. Guests were seated at long tables draped in red with Crystal Chivari Chairs and Sake glasses - both traditional wood boxes and glass!



1 comment:

Mariposah said...

I am the little fat lady with the accent who is your BIGGEST FAN in the whole wide world. Just heard you're coming back to the Philadelphia INTERNATIONAL Flower Show in 2010 and can't wait to hug you and wish you the very best of everything. I'm on visual overload right now. When is your book coming out? I mean, you are preparing one, arent' you?
Carmen Herrera von Wrangell