Story & Photos | Renée Suen, Iris Chui, Rovey Banquet Services
Catering plays a crucial role when planning a memorable wedding celebration. Toronto boasts an array of talented wedding caterers who can elevate your special day with everything from waiter-circulated appetizers to food stations, a full sit-down meal or buffet-style dining. The following catering businesses have been garnering accolades and leaving hosts and guests incredibly impressed. Whatever your style or preference, they’re a guaranteed fit for your wedding celebration!
Embrace Weddings
embraceweddings.ca
With more than 30 years of experience, this seasoned wedding planning and culinary team has been behind boutique-style tailored events featuring catered meals that lean more toward contemporary classics. Specializing in American and European cuisines using fresh, local Canadian ingredients that are accented by Latin American and Middle Eastern flavours, a coursed meal might begin with a watermelon and feta salad, progress to pappardelle with wild mushrooms and peak with Black Angus filet mignon that’s christened with rosemary citrus black tiger shrimps.
Helping to orchestrate all the details of the celebration day is co-owner Renee Foote, a WPIC certified luxury wedding planner, while Igor Shneider, a Red Seal-certified chef, leads the hospitality team of seasoned chefs and servers. Their full-service operation can cater events outside the GTA, covering the range of events before the nuptials to rehearsals, and full day of event support. Whether it’s an intimate group of 25 or gorgeous tented event for hundreds, the team can also provide cake-cutting services, bar plus bartending services, as well as a chocolate fountain closer.
Budget about $200 to $250 per person, which includes a cocktail reception, a range of three-course menus to choose from, staffing and rentals. Planning services are available for $4,500 ($3,500 if scheduling catering with Embrace Weddings).
Toben Food by Design
tobenfoodbydesign.com
Whether minimalistic or grand, intimate or large, indoor or outdoor, TOBEN is known for offering high-touch event management services. For nearly 20 years, co-owner and executive chef Toben Kochman has given its seasonally driven, scratch-made fare a playful twist with influences from Thailand, South America, Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Europe and India.
To start, find punches of flavour from beef short rib and French onion soup croquette, spoons filled with shots of fresh lobster with charred corn salsa, Peking duck steam buns and Berkshire pork carnitas tacos. There’s crispy Korean fried cauliflower, along with herb-dijon crusted lamb chops from the food stations, chermoula grilled branzino or beef tenderloin with truffled pommes puree for the plated main. Late-night snacks might involve mini–Big Mac sliders and buttermilk fried chicken with spiced maple syrup in waffle cones.
This full-service firm provides event management services, including tabletop details from fine china and glassware to linens, decor and staffing. It also provides barware for cocktail receptions, plus wedding cake and cake-cutting service, and even a chocolate fountain. Bonus: The company has its own food truck, which can be added as an extension or standalone offering to the celebration.
Plated service starts at $51 per person. Being a sought-after caterer, the company advises potential clients to reach out a year from the wedding date to ensure there’s enough time to explore all your options and services.
Chau
chautoronto.com
Best known for its late-night food service and bao bar, Chau specializes in creating custom menus for parties in their sweet spot of 150 guests or fewer within the GTA. The women-led catering company offers everything from food stations and buffet spreads to plated and family-style meals.
With over 15 years of culinary experience, including time at Michelin and fine-dining kitchens run by culinary notables, founder and executive chef Jane Tran is a go-to for pan-Asian cuisine, although other specialities include American, barbeque, French, Italian and Southern cuisines. From canapes and hors d’oeuvres to buffets and food stations, French or family-style service, plus cocktail receptions, Tran’s menu breaks away from traditional wedding fare with buffet spreads featuring curry oxtail, butter chicken, yakiniku roast chicken and modern bossam.
There are family-style dinners that might start with a mango threaded summer rice vermicelli salad then transition to mapo tofu that’s served with truffled carbonara spiked with XO sauce. Formal service is a two- or three-course affair serving pan-roasted chicken with sake butter jus or grilled flank steak in bulgogi jus with duck-fat roasted potatoes.
Food stations offer mac and cheese, pho or Chinese barbecue, including char siu, roast pork and Hainanese chicken. Casual grazing tables are filled with an assortment of artisanal cheeses, cured meats and fish, pickles, fruit and vegetables.
While rates start at $48 for buffet-style service per person (formal plated courses begins at $58), there is a minimum of $5,000 during peak season. Do note that Chau’s services can be booked as far as two years in advance, but they’ve catered weddings with three months notice in the off-peak season (October to April).
ProvisionsTO Catering & Events
provisionsto.com
Making everything from scratch, ProvisionsTO is led by founder and executive chef Kevin Castonguay, who injects global flavours into the mouthwatering culinary experience that is matched by handcrafted cocktails. Castonguay’s deep culinary catalogue spans the Americas, Asia (notably Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Korean and Thai), as well as British, Cajun, French, Russian, Spanish and Italian cuisines.
This is where Dungeness crab is served on potato hay and Atlantic lobster rolls are dusted with Old Bay potato chips and black truffles. There is also Brussels sprout okonomiyaki, a AAA dry aged grilled ribeye, grilled harissa octopus and Neapolitan-style pizzas. Other highlights might include pasta courses using local favourite Famiglia Baldassarre, a dessert bar filled with Gloryhole doughnuts or a pot de crème using Soma’s chocolate.
Available to cater to any need, whether it’s cocktail-style passed canapes, a plated sit-down event, buffets or food stations, the full-service operation even provides rentals, event design and floral arrangements, DJs, photographers, videographers and more. There is no event too small or big.
The team has catered a number of prestigious events, like Luminato Festival’s opening night, both King’s and Queen’ Plate events, as well as the Rose Picnic and its staggering 2,500 guests. Pricing starts at $50 per person, which covers food, rentals and staffing for a cocktail reception. For sit-down experiences, rates range from $125 to $200 per person depending on the menu choice and package experience.
Rovey Banquet Services
rovey.ca
For those seeking to blend sumptous settings with exquisite Chinese cuisine, catering services for Chinese banquets prove to be an ideal choice. In Toronto, Rovey Banquet Services exemplifies such service.
Rovey owner Harvey Tam says its Cantonese cuisine private kitchen caters to wedding banquets large and small, from as few as five tables to more than 85. Prices vary, depending on the menu and venue chosen.
Rovey offers start-to-finish services, encompassing arrangements at the venue, menus, and food-and-beverage service and staff. “The general budget range for a 10-table banquet is about $200 to $220 per guest, or down to $180 for larger banquets,” Tam says.
Pre-banquet liaison and arrangements are essential. Tam says venue and catering booking should be made up to a year in advance in order to have everything lined up, especially on highly sought-after dates. “Start all arrangements at least nine months ahead of the set date and explore if there are special requirements,” Tam says. “Confirm all arrangements six months ahead and then have a tasting two months prior to finalize the menu and banquet flow. A week before the wedding, all arrangements should be in place.”
Banquet menus usually comprise eight main courses, finishing off with rice and noodles and dessert. Harvey makes all 12 menu items on site to deliver dishes with the optimal temperature, freshness and presentation. Other than the usual dishes, such as roast piglet, lobster, fish and chicken, Tam also tailors menus to customers’ wishes.
“In the pre-banquet consultation, we ask customers the profile of the guests,” Tam says. “If there are more Caucasians, or people born and bred in Canada who are not partial to steamed whole fish, shark fin soup or abalone, we will suggest alternatives, such as deep-fried crab claws. As all menus are customized, we can provide exciting fusion dishes, such as Abalone Wellington.”
Serving staff are responsible for no more than two tables, ensuring attentive and efficient service. The banquet itself can be completed within three hours and help create sweet memories with a satiating feast.
