01
Purpose before menu
Every commission is designed backwards from what the meeting needs to achieve — closing, thanking, retaining, deciding. Without that reading, everything else is good cooking served in an office.
Strategic Hospitality
When the table is part
When the table is part
of the strategy.
Leadership lunches, client dinners and high-level meetings, handled with the same rigour already applied to every other decision in the business. A single point of contact, fixed pricing agreed in writing, and a level of discretion that never needs to be requested.
One point of contact
Closed pricing
Discretion
24h response
The exposure
The risk nobody budgets for
No board questions a consultancy invoice, the cost of a brand campaign, or what it takes to retain a key director. All of it is spent on the same thing: moving a relationship forward. The table is where many of those relationships are actually decided — and it tends to be the one line awarded on price.
Put plainly, the proportions don't hold. Months of work, travel and fees to reach a meeting, followed by the final stretch — the one moment when everyone's guard is down and the real conversation happens — handed to whichever supplier was quickest to find.
In front of a client
What was about to close, and the ground lost when the conversation cools at precisely the wrong moment.
In front of the board
The credibility of whoever called the meeting. A director remembers how they were received long after forgetting the agenda.
In front of the team
The unintended message about how well the company looks after its own. Nobody says it aloud, but everyone registers it.
When something goes wrong at the table, it isn't the food that fails — it's the meeting. And when it goes right, it can be the reason a client signs, a director stays, or a relationship holds.
The method
Strategic Hospitality
The proprietary method that brings the technical rigour of fine dining into a corporate setting. Every commission is designed from zero around who is hosting, who is being received and what the meeting needs to achieve — applying the same contextual thinking used for every other business decision. Never a fixed menu. Never a generic protocol.
No board presentation is ever improvised. The table that accompanies it deserves exactly the same level of thought — yet it rarely receives it.
Four pillars, no exceptions
02
Structural discretion
Not a promise but a design. Staff, the produce's journey and the whole logistical chain are planned to leave no visible trace beyond the table.
03
Reliability without surprises
Timings, access, allergens and protocol are settled before the service, never improvised during it. In front of a board, predictability is worth more than surprise.
04
Coherence with the host
The table reflects whoever is hosting, not whoever is cooking. The chef disappears from view so the host is amplified — which is precisely why the meeting was called.
The context
Two curves pulling apart
€4,885M
The size of the Spanish catering market in 2025, up 6% on the previous year.
45%
Of that market sits with just five operators. Ten of them account for 60.5%.
€645M
The high-end segment: the most dynamic in the sector, driven by business activity.
Demand for excellence is rising while supply concentrates and standardises. Between those two curves sits a gap no large operator can fill without ceasing to be what it is — and that is exactly where Strategic Hospitality works.
Source: Observatorio Sectorial DBK de INFORMA (Cesce Group), "Catering" sector study, 2025 year-end figures published May 2026.
The diagnosis
Everything that usually goes wrong,
Everything that usually goes wrong,
settled before it starts
Corporate hospitality fails at the same seven points every time. None of them happens at the table: all of them are decided weeks earlier, in how the commission was prepared.
What usually goes wrong
How it's handled here
Set-up runs late and pulls apart a schedule that was planned to the minute.
Timings, access and set-up windows are confirmed at the briefing and put in writing. The kitchen works around the agenda, never the other way round.
Someone with an allergy or dietary requirement is left with nothing suitable to eat, in front of everyone.
Requirements are gathered before the menu is closed and designed into it, not served as a separate plate. Nobody has to explain at the table what they can't eat.
Staff don't know the menu or the protocol, and have to improvise in front of the guest.
The team arrives with the menu and protocol already worked through. If a guest asks, there's an answer — and if they don't, they aren't interrupted.
Information is split across several contacts and something is lost along the way.
One point of contact from start to finish: the chef. What's agreed at the briefing is exactly what reaches the table.
The venue turns out to lack the equipment needed, and it's discovered on the day.
The space is assessed beforehand: access, water, power, available equipment. Anything missing is resolved in the proposal, not during the service.
The budget grows with items that weren't in the original proposal.
A fixed fee, agreed in writing before the service. One figure, one invoice, nothing to reconcile afterwards.
Coordinating it all ends up consuming hours from whoever has fewest to spare.
A 30–45 minute conversation. After that, there is nothing to manage and no suppliers to chase.
If three or more of those seven sounded familiar, the next meeting is already at risk.
The advantage
Why a chef,
Why a chef,
and not a supplier
The method can be explained. These three things only come from a structure like this one.
Technical identity
Gárum, lactic ferments, smoking, curing and pickling, all made in house with verified provenance. It's what separates a memorable table from a merely correct one.
Direct contact
You speak directly to the person who will cook, from briefing to close. No sales team, no account manager, nobody translating the commission along the way.
Continuity
What's learned at each service isn't lost: who doesn't eat what, what worked, what's worth repeating. Over time, that accumulated memory becomes the hardest thing to replace.
Who decides
Different responsibilities,
Different responsibilities,
the same peace of mind
The decision to engage is rarely made by one person alone. Each is looking for something different.
Fewer variables in the moments that allow no error
The table stops being an unknown and becomes another instrument of strategy. The meeting is prepared around what it needs to achieve, not simply what will be served.
One conversation, and the commission is closed
No chain of suppliers, no last-minute calls, no figures to reconcile afterwards. A single point of contact, fixed pricing in writing, and a reply within 24 hours.
Recognition that is still remembered months later
For boards, leadership teams or internal milestones that deserve more than a booked room. With clear invoicing and a rationale that holds up in a budget conversation.
Formats for business
The same rigour,
The same rigour,
fitted to each meeting
All four formats are available for business. Gabinete is the one built specifically for it.
Gabinete
The executive format
Board meetings, leadership committees and due-diligence sessions, delivered at your own premises, with no event set-up. Fixed pricing: the fee does not change if the meeting runs longer than planned.
Closed rate per service · excl. VAT
Up to 4€800
Up to 6€1,150
Up to 8€1,550
Up to 12€2,300
Up to 16€3,100
Up to 18€3,450
Rates exclude VAT; the reduced 10% hospitality rate applies. Includes produce, staff and travel within the city of Madrid. Beyond the city, travel is quoted by distance, and any kitchen equipment the venue doesn't already have (oven, bain-marie, induction hob...) is assessed at the briefing and reflected in the closed proposal.
Vanguardia
The benchmark format
Client dinners, institutional celebrations and multi-day programmes. A signature menu built on in-house fermentation techniques, full table service and complete event coordination.
€195per person · excl. VAT
Esencia
The entry point
The same technical rigour as every other tier, in a more agile format: team lunches, client visits or meetings that don't call for the full scale of Vanguardia.
€135per person · excl. VAT
Atelier
The commission without limits
A complete experience design — menu, setting, pairing and team — for commissions that do not fit a standard format: institutional openings, state dinners, singular family-office requirements.
Per briefingby scope
For recurring needs
Annual Contract
If hospitality is a fixture on your calendar — monthly board meetings, partner lunches, recurring visits — the Annual Contract reserves priority availability and groups several Gabinete services a month under one fixed fee: from €1,800/month (excl. VAT), with 2 Gabinete services for up to 6 people included.
How we work
The engagement process
01
30–45 min
Briefing
An initial conversation about the commission: the occasion, guest numbers, venue, restrictions and the level of protocol required.
02
Within 48 h
Proposal
A closed menu and budget, with the net amount and VAT itemised separately.
03
In writing
Confirmation
Written acceptance and a 50% deposit, which secures the date. The balance is settled as agreed in the individual contract.
04
Agreed protocol
Service
Delivery of the commission with the team and protocol agreed at the briefing.
05
Follow-up
Close
A follow-up after the service and, where relevant, a conversation about ongoing availability under the Annual Contract.
The signature
Every corporate commission is treated for what it is: an extension of the reputation of whoever puts their name to it.
Training
Kitchens awarded 3 Soles Repsol and a Michelin mention. The standard those services demanded, now applied to boards, clients and leadership teams.
Accountability
Every commission is signed by name. There's no structure behind it in which to dilute a mistake, and that shapes every decision in the service.
Coverage
The city of Madrid as the usual base of work. Any travel beyond it is agreed and settled at the briefing, never afterwards.
Method on record
How it works in practice — dietary requirements, protocol, timing — is set out in detail on the blog.
The next step
The next meeting
The next meeting
that can't go wrong
Tell me the occasion and when you need it. I'll reply personally, with a proposal and closed pricing in writing.
01
A personal reply within 24 hours.
02
A 30–45 minute briefing to understand the context.
03
Menu and closed pricing in writing, within 48 hours.
The initial briefing commits you to nothing — it will tell you soon enough whether this method fits what you have in hand.