Back again for the Eastbourne Air Show (Airbourne) – the largest international beachfront air show. A brilliant spectacle that had now been a part of Eastbourne’s attractions for 24 years.

canapé

We’ve been a part of this for the last 8 years, taking on the private hospitality for the Aviator Club, Cirrus Rooms and the Pilot lounge. Each year we change the menu and this year we pulled out all the stops to make it contemporary and more restaurant style – no mean feat when you have over 350 covers over 4 days – most of which are crammed into the Friday and Saturday. See pictures to see what delights we had on the menu!

Guests enjoy a private enclosure with a bar service and private bathroom facilities as well as the best view over the beach front. With canapé and champagne on arrival, followed by a leisurely three course lunch and coffee it’s a great day out, especially if the weather is kind and all of the flying goes ahead.

Thursday tends to be fairly quiet (which for us is a good lead up to the big days so that we all know what we’re doing back of house). Friday is a heavily corporate day with some companies having come each year since we took on the contract. Saturday tends to be made up of smaller parties of private individuals, and then the Sunday fairly quiet again and a good wind-down to what has always been an adrenalin-fuelled 4 days.

slow-roast shoulder of lamb on boulangere potatoes with roasted peppers & sun-blushed tomatoes

slow-roast shoulder of lamb on boulangere potatoes with sun-blushed tomatoes

Unlike all of the weddings we do, the air show is more of a restaurant style service – as opposed to banqueting style service where the emphasis is on getting the food out of the kitchen quickly so that the guests can all be eating at the same time. This is a more staggered service – which should be easier – but with the distractions of planes overhead it actually works out that most people do want to eat at roughly same time! Nobody wants to be sat inside their marquee when the Red Arrows are overhead!

But with access to the area for the entire day folks seemed quite happy to take it leisurely and soak up the sunshine which was in abundance this year. All of the flying went ahead as scheduled and we had so many wonderful comments about the food and the day as a whole.

Big thanks to all of the people that helped us pull this off once again!