ichele Polci, director of catering sales at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, along with her catering team and the award-winning culinary staff, is always thinking outside the box. “We all work well together, share ideas, and get excited about how far we can take themed events,” says Polci. For a New Year’s Eve party for 3,700 people, Polci and her team decided to have some fun with the dessert buffet.

“Before midnight, we had a ‘dessert reveal.’ The dessert buffets were hidden behind curtains in four corners of the room, and when the curtains dropped, an enchanted fairy world was revealed. We had people dressed as fairies and creatures from the forest, live wheatgrass underneath Plexiglas platforms, crazy dessert sculptures, and other fantastic desserts,” Polci says.

The dessert sculptures included a funky chocolate clock (to signify the countdown to midnight) that took Pastry Chef Vincent Pilon 12 hours to make, as well as chocolate-dipped strawberries adhered to a chocolate cone to resemble a tree. Other treats on the buffet included a fruit torte; raspberry, chocolate, and pistachio macaroons; raspberry creams; Zenith Raspberry Mousse (vanilla bean white chocolate mousse with raspberries); Hazelnut- Lemon Chiboust (hazelnut mousse with lemon crème); and Chocolate Feuillitine Crunch (toasted crêpe wafers folded in hazelnut crème and topped with chocolate mousse). Just as tempting were assorted parfaits including Praline Floating Islands (crème Anglaise flavored with hazelnut paste) and Exotic Fruit Soup (purée of mango, papaya, passion fruit, and coconut, with fresh berries).

The New Year’s event is up for Catered Event of the Year at the 2007 National Association of Catering Executives awards,” says Polci. “We all worked really hard, so keep your fingers crossed.”