Caviar for breakfast? How Apple plans to pamper WWDC22 attendees.

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Apple is hosting a limited event at Apple Park for WWDC22.
Apple is hosting a limited event at Apple Park for WWDC22.
Photo: Arne Müseler, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE, via Wikimedia Commons; Image: Apple
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Lucky attendees who get to visit Apple Park for a special WWDC22 developer day are getting the red carpet treatment, including caviar for breakfast.

The menu for the event includes a smoked salmon and caviar bagel made from “house smoked salmon, mascarpone cream, Tobiko black caviar, Persian cucumber, [and] micro horseradish,” which asks more questions than it answers. What on earth is micro horseradish?

What’s on the menu at WWDC22?

Typically, catering at Apple Events in the pre-COVID-19 days was just a couple of notches above Fyre Festival food, but not much.

At press events, journalists could expect lukewarm coffee and stock pastries. At Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, attendees received uninspiring boxed lunches. (Hungry devs often passed over those to enjoy proper food at local venues in the San Francisco Bay Area.)

But according to a menu Apple sent to attendees of the upcoming “Special Event at Apple Park” on June 6, times have changed for the annual developers conference.

Other items on the menu include fancy food like Almond Butter and Avocado toast for breakfast, which again features the mysterious micro horseradish. All told, there are seven different breakfast items, including Berries Parfait, Overnight Oats and a selection of Caffè Macs juices, which are reportedly squeezed fresh every day.

Lunch offers choices like Barbeque Brisket (“Slow roasted beef brisket glazed with our house made barbeque sauce served with three cheese macaroni and cheese”), a Romana Quattro Roman-style pizza and Chicken Tikka Masala (served with jeera mutter rice), among other items.

Dessert is Dark Chocolate Panna Cotta: “Dark chocolate custard topped with raspberry gelée, vanilla chantilly, and fresh raspberries.”

My mouth is watering already.

First WWDC event at Apple Park

Apple is hosting the special day for developers during WWDC22 at Apple Park in Cupertino, California. Attendees will be a mix of young coders who won the Swift Student Challenge, randomly picked members of the Apple Developer Program and select members of the press.

After a fancy breakfast, attendees will watch the keynote and Platforms State of the Union videos alongside Apple engineers and other staff. After lunch, they get to explore Apple’s all-new Developer Center, and take a tour of the corporate cafeteria, the fitness center or the landscaping around the spaceship campus.

This is the first Apple event to serve food directly from Caffè Macs, the employee cafeteria at Apple Park. Revolutionizing Caffè Macs is one of the lesser-known (but long-lasting) changes Steve Jobs made upon his return to Apple in the late 1990s. The Caffè Macs at the old Apple campus received glowing reviews on Foursquare. (Among the reviews are many references to a Green Lantern smoothie, an item I am intensely curious about, and am saddened to hear is not on the WWDC22 menu.)

What does the day for developers look like?

Before WWDC22 officially starts with the keynote on June 6, Apple Park will open a day early.

Attendees will have between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. on Sunday, June 5, for early check-in at the Apple Park Visitor Center. An open ouse at the new Apple Developer Center will offer “a brief tour of the first floor” with “dedicated developer lab areas, pods, briefing centers, and more.”

Apple calls its new Developer Center a “world-class facility designed for our community to meet, collaborate with, and learn from our engineers, designers, and experts.” It will be open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. the day before the keynote and 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. the morning of.

Breakfast at Caffè Macs, then a keynote

The big day starts with the aforementioned breakfast bagels in Caffè Macs from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Immediately outside the ring, through the tall sliding doors, the keynote will be played from 10 a.m. to noon (and streamed live worldwide on the Apple Event page). Lunch will follow from noon to 1 p.m.

From 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. — after the Platforms State of the Union, and before the Apple Design Awards — attendees can “get to know some of the engineers, designers, and experts behind Apple’s software and services” in a Meet the Teams event. Attendees also can pick from one of three half-hour tours of the campus: Apple Park Hills, Fitness Center Area and Caffè Macs.

The Apple Park Hills tour is already booked at the time of writing.

Cult of Mac has WWDC22 covered

The Cult of Mac team will cover all the big announcements — iOS and iPadOS 16, macOS 13, watchOS 9 and maybe that Mac Pro we’ve been teased about.

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