Catering advice

Hello- I'm in the market for a wedding caterer for a wedding October. Our reception venue (in Highland Park) allows us to bring in any caterer. We'd love to find something different than the usual wedding chicken and potatoes, but cost is also a concern. Does anyone know of a caterer (or restaurant with catering experience) that would provide tasty food at reasonable prices? We'd be happy with something different or unusual, but it would also need to be something our less adventurous guests could enjoy (have to keep Grandma happy!). Buffet or plated dinner would be fine with us.

Thanks!

There are quite a few good caterers out there. One issue is the number of guests you'll have. Many of the (very good) smaller caterers cannot handle a large wedding. Many restaurants will have a difficult time catering a large group also. Our wedding had 200 people and that limited us to the larger companies. We went with Greg Christian and were incredibly impressed with the food and service. Our second choice was Entertaining Company, who seemed very good but were a bit more expensive. llll

Hi,

There are a number of threads with topics on catering and wedding planning:

Search for topic titles with catering: search.php?keywords=catering&terms=all&author=&fid%5B%5D=14&sc=1&sf=titleonly&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search

Search for topic titles with wedding: search.php?keywords=wedding&terms=all&author=&fid%5B%5D=14&sc=1&sf=titleonly&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search

If you read through these threads, you may have a eureka moment.

Regards,

City Provisions did a great job with our company event, a cocktail party.

http://www.cityprovisions.com/

One of those threads was mine, and I have a hunch you are using the same venue we did. I don't know what you have in mind as far as cost, but we had Noon-o-Kabab cater our wedding (and a huge-ass booze order from Sam's), and we got a ton of compliments. Lots of people told us that ours was the best wedding food they'd ever had. And they will work with you on custom menus. (We also wanted something a little different, but there was enough in the way of grilled meat to satisfy the picky eaters, and plenty of stuff for vegetarians to choose from, too.)

lexigman, you don't mention how many people you're looking to have catered for & any particular cuisine, but a lot of Chicago restaurants are good options depending on the size of your group & can be very cost effective.

I attended a wedding a few years ago at the South Shore Cultural Center for which Furama on Broadway did the catering for about 150 people, they did a very nice semi-traditional Chinese banquet & supplied the wait staff too (the couple was Southside Irish catholic & LA Chinese-America, so I think there were some concessions to making sure there were enough dishes everyone was comfortable with). It was one of the most fun wedding dinners I've been to plus the food was very good.

Noon-o-Kebab is a good option & so is Salaam (& Nazareth & Jaffar Sweets are happy to do dessert tables for events).

If Indian isn't too exotic for your guests, India House has a huge catering group that supplies a lot of local weddings & they are used to dealing with large numbers.

I've been to a bunch of events that used Wolfgang Puck Catering - its good, but I suspect its pretty pricey.

leximegan - We offer catering for groups under 150 and would be happy to help you if you fall in that range. We customize all of our menus and are very good at developing menus that are interesting, but still widely appealing. Although I've never personally dealt with a restaurant caterer, I'm guessing that most full-service caterers (us included) are generally more accustomed to providing staffing and rentals for off-site events. Plus, if you're not looking for something that falls strictly into one cuisine a caterer can give you the right balance of ethnic and more traditional.

I don't know how pricey we are - it depends who else you're looking at. In general I find our prices are competitive compared to other caterers who offer similar services (homemade food, non-Sysco ingredients, custom menus and full service). We are going to be pricier than most ethnic restaurants that offer catering.

I'd love to talk to you more about your event. Feel free to e-mail me at molly@figcatering.com.

Thanks everyone for your advice! We are planning to have between 100 and 125 people.

Eva Luna- Does noon-o-kebab provide servers and linens/plates/cutlery/etc?

leximegan wrote:Thanks everyone for your advice! We are planning to have between 100 and 125 people.

Eva Luna- Does noon-o-kebab provide servers and linens/plates/cutlery/etc?

They do provide servers, and they gave me a bunch of referrals for linens/plates/cutlery, but they don't provide those directly. (They also provided a bartender for us.) We had just under 100 people.

We had Smoque cater our wedding (165 people). Needless to say, the food was incredible. Everyone raved about it. They were also very reasonably priced. We did have to hire other another company to bring in tables, linens, etc.

We just booked Chuck's Southern Comfort Cafe to cater my stepdaughter's wedding in June. Cost was very reasonable and the bride and groom are delighted with the menu.

Suzy

Just got married in October and our venue (UIC Forum) allowed any caterer as well... we went with D'Absolute, based out of Chicago. For the most part a great experience with them. Chris, the owner, pretty much runs everything himself. Everyone at the reception loved the food. Very reasonable prices as well, especially for the food quality.

http://www.dabsolute.com/

For more reviews and my full review on Yelp.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/dabsolute-catering-chicago#hrid:cz7Qg75LAxnMQVXQ7IRMQQ