We get more requests for cocktail-party food than anything else. What do you serve guests who are coming over for drinks? Well, cheese, of course, and olives, and maybe some beautiful prosciutto wrapped around melon. But we wanted to offer more. So we asked some of our favorite chefs and caterers across the country for the hors d’oeuvres that are their crowd-pleasers, the ones people climb over each other to get to, the ones never left over at the end of the party. The ones, in other words, that are killer. Their recipes are on the following pages.
Warning: Some of these recipes are time consuming. Depending on your schedule, you may want to choose among them for one party. (We’ve rated them for difficulty from 1 to 3: 1 is easiest, and 3 is hardest.)
Recipes by Stephen Gibbs, Dana Williams and Daniel Flores, Richard Crocker, V. Jaime Hamlin, and Marc Alvarez. Drinks by Nick Mautone. Photos by formula z/s.