Every office has the colleague who comes to the Christmas drinks, holds one lemonade for forty minutes and slips out before anyone notices, and the most useful question for whoever is organising this year's function is what that person would actually enjoy. If you're looking for work function ideas in Christchurch that happen during work hours and don't hinge on a bar tab, our patisserie inside The Welder on Welles Street was built for that kind of afternoon.
Our kitchen is open plan, so your team can watch Dhi Ferrari and his pastry chefs at work from tables among the plants, and every format below comes with the setup, ingredients and washing up taken care of. The aim is simple: the people who normally skip the function turn up for this one.
The Mini-Cake Decorating Challenge, for teams who like a scoreboard
Picture a table of eight, with somebody from finance hunched over a mini cake and a piping bag, tongue between their teeth, while the graduate opposite has already crowned theirs with a wobbling tower of garnish and is lobbying for votes. In the Mini-Cake Decorating Challenge everyone gets a freshly baked mini cake, an artist's palette of buttercream and professional garnishes, and a short briefing on piping. You then have up to 90 minutes to outdo each other before the table crowns a winner.
It runs for 4 to 12 guests at $65 per person, Tuesday to Friday between 11am and 4pm, so it fits inside a working day, and nobody needs any skill beyond a willingness to be laughed at. You can add warm Brazilian cheese bread, with its stretchy, chewy middle, and a tea or coffee each. Everyone eats their creation, or boxes it up for their desk.
High tea, for a team that wants to sit and talk
Some teams would prefer to slow down after a long year, and the Full High Tea Experience suits them well. Over a relaxed 90 minutes you get savoury bites led by our Brazilian cheese bread, miniature desserts that include several you won't find in our cabinet, and bottomless organic Zealong tea from pots that keep arriving hot, all at $65 per person.
The main patisserie seats up to twelve comfortably, and for a larger group or a private weekday event you can ask us for a quote on The Welder's events space. A vegetarian menu and a no-added-gluten version are both options when you book the high tea.
A festive class, taught by the chef himself
For a team that wants to leave with a skill, Dhi's baking and cake decorating classes come in team-building versions of one, two or three hours, and the Christmas classes suit December best. The Brownie Wreath class teaches a fudgy double-chocolate brownie with a crackly top, finished with ganache whipped until it's light as a cloud. The Yule Log class covers rolling a chocolate sponge without cracking it, crisp meringue mushrooms and a crunchy hazelnut praline, while the Christmas Desserts class includes a tarte tatin and its nervy flip.
Dhi has over 18 years in patisserie and owned a culinary school for eight years, so a room of nervous beginners doesn't faze him. The kitchen takes four to six people comfortably, and larger teams move into the events space.
After hours, with the patisserie to yourselves
If your team would still like an evening, a private group dessert evening gives you the patisserie after closing, with rotating plated desserts and Dhi explaining the technique behind each one. The format grew out of our Patisserie After Dark evenings, described in our dessert bar night post, and the talk around a warm, spoonable dessert carries on happily without a drink in anyone's hand. Our drinks list has low and no-sugar options, and most hot and cold drinks come with a dairy-free milk option.
Everyone at the table, including the fussy eaters
The challenge and the high tea both have a no-added-gluten option you choose when booking, and our No Added Gluten Cakes & Desserts range is broad. Our kitchen is small and without exclusive production areas for all our recipes, though, so traces may occur and we can't cater safely for severe coeliac disease. Please tell us about dietary needs when you enquire.
If you'd rather celebrate in the office, our catering boxes of mini cakes and petit fours are collected from the patisserie, since we don't deliver. Our post on corporate catering in Christchurch covers how to plan the pickup.
Getting a date locked in before December
Send your group size and preferred format through the form on our group experiences page, and our guide to the four ways to book a group compares the formats side by side. High tea needs at least 48 hours' notice, but choosing in October gives you the widest pick of December dates. Catering boxes go through the online checkout, where the date picker only offers pickup dates the kitchen can meet, usually two days out, or seven for petit fours.
We're open 10am to 6pm Tuesday to Friday and 10am to 3pm Saturday, closed Sundays and Mondays and over the end-of-year break, so keep an eye on our Christmas page as the season nears. For a thank-you each guest can take home, a Dhi Ferrari gift card slips into a Christmas card and brings them back with someone else next time.
