For Sebastien (Seb) and Sheila Centner (collectively known as @SebandSheila, both on and offline), hosting their epic events and dinner parties is what Sheila calls “an orchestrated dance.” It’s one they’ve certainly perfected in their 27-years of marriage. Throughout that time, the powerhouse pair have become known as entertaining royalty in Canada and, more recently, south of the border in sunny Miami. For nearly 25-years, the always incredibly stylish couple – who Toronto society writer Shinan Govani has dubbed “serial entertainers”– have thrown unforgettable events around the world through their company, Eatertainment Events and Catering…and they’re just getting started. But just in time for the holiday hosting season, we sat down with the duo to share how you too can level up your hosting skills, thanks to their new book: Entertainment – which is also the perfect stocking stuffer or host(ess) gift.
Where it all began
The adorably in-love power couple, Seb and Sheila, are an example that not all who rush in are fools in the end. “We literally met at a bar over a few shooters because of a mutual friend,” says Sheila. “It was a Toronto bar called Limelight way back in the day. We met and connected, had lunch the next day, dinner the next day and I moved in with him 10-days later.” The couple was engaged within six -months and married within one-year. Now, they’re the proud parents of their sons, Colsen (24) and Logan (21).
Seb credits his mother’s love for food and entertaining as inspiration for his own career path. His parents, both French economists, met in Paris before moving to Canada together in the 1970s. “When they moved here back then, they found it kind of depressing – there were no good restaurants,” he says. “So, my mom took it upon herself to always be hosting, having people over, and throwing great parties – dinner parties, going away parties, birthday parties. Her passion for entertaining was something she passed down to my brother and I.”
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Eventually, Seb’s parents ended up in the restaurant and hotel business and Seb too found himself in the restaurant industry at the time he and Sheila started dating. “It was something that I liked to do, but I didn’t love,” he says. “But what I really loved was the whole event side of the business. So, I launched Eatertainment Events and Catering almost 25-years ago. We started with small events; 15-20 people and maybe 30 of them a year. But the business just grew and grew and grew, to where we are today.”
Eatertainment makes its mark globally
Today, Eatertainment hosts about 1700 events a year and has become one of the most celebrated and coveted catering companies in Canada. “Our largest event ever was the Red Bull Air Race in New York City, which was 100,000-attendees over 3-days,” says Seb. “We’ve done events in New York, Miami, San Diego, Palm Springs, and LA. We’ve done them as far away as Istanbul and South Africa. So, it’s kind of been something that we’ve grown and just absolutely love doing.”
Throughout the years, the pair reflects on how people would frequently turn to them for expert entertaining advice. “We started to share our recipes and ideas for entertaining,” says Seb. “And, before we knew it, I would do TV appearances and magazine articles around entertaining, which eventually tied it into our business.”
“It’s not really a cookbook…”
Sebastien Centner, creative director of Eatertainment, and Entertaining expert
Then, about 4-years ago, Penguin Random House came inquiring about a book deal. Sheila says the couple had considered doing book projects before, but that nothing quite made sense at the time. “Then, Penguin Random House came to us and said, ‘Hey, we’d really like to do an entertaining book with you,’” recalls Seb. “It’s not really a cookbook – I mean, our book has about 150 food recipes and more or less 50-drink recipes – but primarily about offering an entertaining guide to help people host better. All the tips, tricks, ideas, and concepts that we’d shared with people over the years through our TV segments and interviews, but organized all in one place.”
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The entertaining bible comes to life
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic – and Ontario’s relentless lockdown measures – as it wreaked havoc on the province’s entertainment industry, Seb and Sheila found a handful of silver linings during the challenging time. For starters, it offered time to work on the book. “Having some down time with the business in Toronto closed really gave us the opportunity to work on the book,” says Sheila. “It was certainly a labour of love and took 3-years from start to finish – literally. If hospitality in Toronto and entertainment had been thriving and booming, I don’t know where we would have found the time to actually work on the book and complete it.”
Naturally, the creation of the book wasn’t simple, nor without its challenges. “It’s so much fun doing photoshoots [for the book], and what I get really excited about is working on the chapters and putting together menus and suggesting foods I think will complement each other and the drinks,” says Sheila. “I’m very passionate about the whole story. The challenge for me was being able to put all of my ideas and thoughts about why we love doing so many things the way we love to do them, into words.”
Seb admits that the creation of the book involved a lot more work than he anticipated. “When I do a TV segment, or a magazine interview, or article, you sort of get an outline and you do your concept and shoot it; there’s an interview, a few recipes, and you’re done,” he says. “When you do a book, it has to be much more thoughtful. You really have to think to yourself, ‘What are people going to get out of this book, and how is it intended that book will be used?’ Is it going to be a reference guide? Is it going to be something you’re going to read from cover to cover and go through every single point? Is it a coffee table book?’”
The end result features practical tools like a “countdown calendar” to help with time management when hosting. “We built a roadmap for every chapter to basically say, ‘Here’s what you do a week out, here’s what you do 3-days out, here’s what you do 2-days out, what you do one day out,’” says Sheila. The book also features what the pair calls the “party math pages,” a fool-proof guide to get the numbers right.
“There’s a two-page spread that outlines the basics of what you’re going to need for hosting a party for different group sizes; how much ice, how many canapes per person, how much wine, et cetera,” says Seb. “If somebody buys this book, we want them to get a lot out of it and find everything they need to entertain. And that was a lot of work to really look at the big picture while you’re focusing on each of the individual concepts for each chapter.”
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Eatertainment: Recipes and Ideas for Effortless Entertaining officially launched in mid-September and is available through Amazon and Indigo (a great holiday gift idea too).
Gift a copy of Eatertainment
Just in time for the holidays today, and get it before Christmas. From $16.99*, available in digital or Hardcover form.
Expert tips + tricks, to level-up your holiday hosting this season
1 Sheila says that one of the biggest tips for entertaining is not to bite off more than you can chew – something that can be easier said than done. “Everything doesn’t have to be spectacular and over the top,” she says. “Know your strengths and play on those. At the end of the day, people are coming to visit you. You’re hosting your friends or family, and if you’re having a good time, they’ll feed off of your energy and have a good time as well. So, don’t stress.”
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Seb drives home the value in simplicity and sticking to one’s strengths. “Let’s say you’re having 12 people for dinner; well, that might not be the best night for you to start experimenting with new things where all of a sudden there’s a lot more jeopardy to it,” says Seb. “If you’re having three or four close friends over, try a new recipe. Why not? Three or four people is a great number for guinea pigs, because you can always change it up or swap something out. Twelve is a lot more challenging to do. We always want people to push the entertaining envelope, learn new things, and try new recipes. But just do it in a way that’s not going to get you stressed or put too much pressure on you to perform.”
2 Another key, says the couple is to prepare as much in advance as possible – from cutting lemons and limes, to making room in the closet for guests’ coats and emptying the garbage before the guests arrive.
“Set the table the night before,” says Sheila. “Buy your florals a day or two before so they have a chance to open, so that the night of your event, you’re really just cooking or plating things that have already been prepared. If you’re serving a soup, you can make that the day before. If you’re marinating meat, you could do that the day before. Unload the dishwasher before guests arrive. But things like setting the table and getting florals – those are no brainers. Get it out of the way.”
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3 The pair says there’s often a misconception about hosting in small spaces – like Toronto condos. “There are so many options for entertaining in a small space,” says Sheila. “Even lack of counter space doesn’t mean you have to put flat trays side by side all along the counter, because you simply don’t have the space. You can use tiered trays for canapés, for example, and build upwards instead of outwards.” On the cocktail front, Sheila suggests replacing a do-it-yourself bar that can crowd counters and credenzas with pre-made cocktails in a batched version in either a massive punch bowl or countertop dispenser. “So, the cocktails are all ready to go,” she says. “All your guests need to do is grab a glass and pour themselves one.”
Seb says that, in the absence of a tiered tray, plates with glasses turned upside down can serve the same purpose. “In a condo environment, you may not have the space to do a plated meal – or, at least not as soon as you go over six or eight people,” says Seb. “So, a lot of what we do is grazing based. For example you can do an amazing charcuterie platter that you can easily replenish throughout the night and that people can always go to – there’s always a destination. Then, instead of passing canapés, which require staff and all those sorts of things, tray up your canapé so you have individual bite-sized ones that you can prepare most of in advance and just be finishing and replenishing.”
Teamwork makes the dreamwork – and memorable events
Anyone who’s attended an event hosted by the Centners over the years (I know I personally miss their annual summer bash) has witnessed the way the pair truly complement one another in both creating a vibe and execution. The pair switches back and forth between keeping guests engaged and entertained and ensuring that things run smoothly.
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“It takes a lot of practice; it’s not a natural skill,” says Sheila. “You have to get to know your partner. You have to get to know how to be in the kitchen together, how to work together. It can be quite challenging. But what we like to do is kind of joke and say that everybody needs to stay in their own lane. At the same time, we don’t want to leave our guests unattended. So, if Sebastian is plating the first course or he’s clearing some plates, I make sure to sit at the table and continue conversation or generate conversation.”
The couple both compare this to a dance. “She always knows where I am, I know where she is, and we kind of play off each other,” says Seb. “As a couple, there’s a whole bunch of moments in life – whether it’s moving in together, renovating, having a child, getting married – when you’re doing all these things where you learn to coexist and to work together. And I think entertaining is a really great opportunity for people to do exactly that and work together as a team. Because if we’re not aligned – and we’ve had nights where we’re not 100% aligned, especially early in our relationship with hosting – you just get stressed. If one person is doing something and the other person should be doing it, your guests feel that. Now, we want to make sure that we are 100% aligned because it’s going to make it easier and obviously way more enjoyable for us and for our guests.”
Making waves in Miami
In addition to the time it afforded to work on their book, another silver lining of the pandemic for the Centners was the ability to spend more time with their sons. After years of calling Toronto a full-time home, Seb and Sheila now split their time between the city and Miami. While the pair had frequently traveled to Miami during their marriage, it became a much bigger part of their lives when their sons relocated there in recent years for their post-secondary education. The pandemic also played a role in this.
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“Miami has always been a second home,” says Seb. “Then, about 5-years ago, our oldest son was applying to university and one of the places he applied was University of Miami. He had a connection to the city from spending so much time there at our family properties. He got in, and our younger son followed suit a few years later. We have a place in South Beach and would sort of go back and forth. Then, the pandemic hit and we moved down here in August 2020. We said, ‘Well, everything is pretty much closed here; if we’re going to ride this out, we might as well do it in Miami with our kids.’”
The Centners have done events in and around Miami in the past, but not really formally. “It was sort of all based out of Toronto,” says Seb. “For the first time ever, we’re now putting some roots down in Miami and looking to host more here. We’re opening an office and doing some exciting stuff. And I think Miami is a great market. I think a lot of people do a lot of things very well in Miami. But I still think there’s a need for an event solution that is really a turn-key, all-encompassing solution. I think, whether it’s staffing decor, food, bar lighting and entertainment, it’s all brought together. That’s really what we do in Toronto and around the world, and we really want to be able to do that in Miami.”
“I would say that 2023 is going to be a big year for us in Miami…”
Sebastien Centner, creative director of Eatertainment. and Entertaining expert
So, the Centners have set a lot more efforts on doing just that. “I would say that 2023 is going to be a big year for us in Miami,” says Seb. We can’t wait to see it!
COVER Credits
Creative/Fashion Director and Producer: STEVEN BRANCO; Shot by: JWU; Grooming + Makeup: ANDREW SIMON BEAUTY; Food and prop styling: SEBASTIEN CENTNER; Production Planning Assistance: VICTORIA GIBSON; Location: MIAMI BEACH, FLORIDA.
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