The Rainwater Conference Center in Valdosta, Georgia, welcomed a new executive chef, Michelle Pessia, who brings more than 15 years of culinary management experience to the center.
Pessia began her new role on May 11. Shortly thereafter, she spoke with Meetings Today about creating trendy, memorable meals for groups.
Meetings Today: What excites you about creating meals that attendees will remember?
Michelle Pessia: I love to look at people's faces when they try a food item that they've never had before, or they try the food, and they're just like, ‘wow, this is amazing.’ I've had client surveys come in, and people always remember the food as being fantastic, so I love when that's their takeaway.
I love to feed people, and I love to see their reaction, especially when they're in a stressful moment or stressful time. Also, when we get people from far away and they have no idea what to expect, but they try [the food] and it's really elevated and they're just blown away. I love to create items that people have never had before, and they'll email me months or even years later [asking] what was that again? Could you send me the recipe?
So that makes me happy. It really pays off.
What is a dish or ingredient you want to try out more with groups?
I do cook with a lot of bourbons, so I feel like that's something new I could bring to the offerings here and get people to try—you might not even realize that it was in that sauce or that dish, so I think that's really interesting. I also do a lot of dessert sauces with bourbon, so it would be awesome to try that here to get people's reactions. I like to add champagne, especially when I'm doing a salad vinaigrette. I love to cook with alcohol; it has a good flavor.
What trends are you seeing across group-dining experiences?
Dubai chocolate is really, really big, so I've developed my own Dubai cup. We were selling that a lot back home [in Kentucky], so that's something that I would love to make for a group. [It could be] an appetizer item, a small strawberry with pistachio on top [and] a little chocolate.
With Dubai, you can incorporate that into anything, like on top of a cheesecake, [and it’s] super high-end too. It wows people.
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Also, when I came to the South I noticed there's a lot of Cajun, and I'm very interested in that. I'm really ready to dive into the Cajun and Southern soul cooking. It's really big here, which pleases me a lot.
What's your biggest challenge in this new role that focuses on group dining?
My main goal here is to get people talking about the food in the next few months. The facility is beautiful, the staff's wonderful, so I just want to get the food honed in such that people are like, ‘man, I had an amazing steak there,’ and I really want people to talk about this place. That would definitely be my challenge [and] my goal right now, to get the word out in the community. I would love clients to rebook and just go through the menu and say, ‘I had that last time, and now I really want this.’
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