CHICAGO, May 5, 2026 — The stately Great Hall of Chicago’s historic Union Station, which opened 101 years ago, is famous for many things.
It has been featured in movies from “The Untouchables” to “The Sting” to “My Best Friend’s Wedding.”
Its soaring, barrel-vaulted skylight was blacked out during WWII to diminish the risk from enemy aircraft, and those windows were kept hidden until 1981.
Its east wall is anchored by two statues, one figure holding a rooster to represent day and another holding an owl to symbolize night.
But one feature the Great Hall doesn’t boast? A commercial kitchen.
That’s just one wrinkle caterers and event planners must contend with each May when mounting IFMA The Food Away from Home Association’s Gold & Silver Plate Awards gala.
The celebratory meal for 600 to 700 attendees, which honors the food-away-from-home industry’s best and brightest, is the culmination of months of planning between IFMA, its catering company and its food sponsors.
Entertaining Company, a woman-owned firm in Chicago, has been catering the Gold & Silver Plate Awards for 14 years. Entertaining Company is an off-premise caterer, meaning its crew members are pros at building kitchens at their events.
“We feel that the quality of the product is better when it’s actually made on site, in this case, Union Station, than it would be cooked and then reheated,” said Denise Robinette, senior sales consultant for Entertaining Company.
A ribeye steak, for example, might be seared at the caterer’s HQ before being transported at temperature and finished over Sterno in the Great Hall.
Menu planning begins two to three months before the event, once protein sponsors are secured.
Then comes a collaborative process between Entertaining Company chefs, IFMA event organizers and, in some cases, the sponsors themselves.
“There are a lot of moving parts,” Robinette said. “It is a collaborative process.”
This year, for the 72nd annual Gold & Silver Plate gala, the team at The Marzetti Company decided to play into the glamour of the night, crafting a custom salad dressing that mimics a celebratory French 75 cocktail.
The Shimmering French 75 Vinaigrette features champagne vinegar, with notes of gin flavoring along with orange and lemon for a citrus zing. Flecks of edible gold glitter elevate the dressing.
The Marzetti team started with 30 different dressing ideas before landing on the glittering selection. The one-of-a-kind dressing then went through multiple iterations to get the finished product just right.
An added bonus? All of the 2026 Silver Plate winners will be receiving a bottle of the custom Marzetti dressing to take home.
After the salad course, Gold & Silver Plate gala guests will be treated to a “Duet of Land and Sea” entrée featuring ribeye steak courtesy of Cargill and farmed Atlantic cod, also known as Norwegian Snow Cod, from sponsor High Liner Foods.
The cod is part of a new portfolio for High Liner, the High Liner Coastal Reserve Snow Cod Collection. It’s a premium, bright white cod featuring a firm texture and a mild, approachable flavor, said Paige Huitt, High Liner’s senior manager of foodservice marketing and category development.
The chefs at Entertaining Company then round out the menu with appetizers and other dishes to complement the sponsored offerings.
“We try to make sure that it’s balanced as well as cohesive in the entire menu being presented the night of,” Robinette said.
She keeps a spreadsheet of everything served at past Gold & Silver Plate Awards ceremonies and tries to avoid duplicating any dishes from the last half-dozen years or so.
It’s an audience that wants delicious food, if not necessarily cutting-edge flavors, Robinette noted.
“This is a very traditional crowd in their tastes,” she said. “We have tried different flavor profiles and presentations over the years … I keep track of all the feedback and what people have said so, that way, we can tweak or change for the following year.”
The Entertaining Company team, which this year will number nearly 100 people, arrives in the Great Hall at around 2 p.m. the day of the event. Set up begins in the morning, with the arrival of the tables, chairs, glassware, plates and more.
Robinette said her most challenging Gold & Silver Plates dinner to pull off was immediately after the pandemic in 2022, when staffing was extremely challenging.
Over the years, she has learned some keys to pulling off a successful event. First, the caterer must have a good relationship with the client. Second, no detail is too small to be worried over. Three, ongoing communication is essential.
“I don’t like surprises,” Robinette said. “I don’t like drama trauma. The more I can get that information up front, which IFMA is phenomenal at providing, that helps me to organize the information and give it to all the players that need it to create the success for the night.
“The bottom line is, it takes a team.”
Here’s the full list of sponsors for the 2026 Gold & Silver Plate Awards dinner:
Unilever: Appetizers & dessert
The Marzetti Company: Signature salad dressing
Cargil: Ribeye steak
Highliner: Farm-raised Snow Cod
Hershey: Dessert
Rich Products: Dessert
Heather Lalley is the director of communications for IFMA The Food Away from Home Association. A lifelong journalist, Lalley has previously worked with industry publications including Restaurant Business, CSP Daily News, Supermarket News and Foodservice Director.