Ask anyone about an event they went to last year and they will tell you about the food. Ask a planning checklist and catering appears somewhere near the bottom, after linen. That mismatch is worth correcting early, because catering constrains the timings, the layout and the budget more than almost anything else.
These are the questions worth settling before a date is confirmed.
Who actually cooks?
There are three common arrangements and they are very different to manage:
- The venue caters its own events
- The venue has a list of caterers you must choose from
- You bring your own caterer, subject to the venue's rules
None is automatically better, but each has a different failure mode. An external caterer needs kitchen access, load-in time and a briefing on the venue's rules; a mandatory list narrows your cuisine options; an in-house kitchen means one team but you should ask what they actually cook.
Emerald caters its own events. The practical effect is that the team holding your date is the team planning the menu, so the food and the room are not two separate negotiations.
Will you cook our food, or your menu?
This is the question, particularly if the celebration belongs to a specific community. A kitchen that treats regional cuisine as a special request will produce a polite approximation of it.
Be concrete on the tour. Name the dishes that have to be right. Describe the spice level your family actually eats rather than the one that gets served to guests. Ask whether a recipe from the family can be cooked as written.
The catering page lists the cuisine families we start from — South Asian, Persian and Afghan, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean, Mexican and Latin American, Filipino, East and Southeast Asian, African and Caribbean, American and Continental. That list is a starting point rather than a limit, which is exactly how it should be read.
How are dietary requirements handled?
There is a real distinction between a preference and a requirement, and a venue that blurs it will get it wrong.
Halal preparation is not a garnish decision — if it is wrong, part of your guest list cannot eat at all. The same is true of a serious allergy, of Jain and no-onion-no-garlic cooking, and of a vegetarian or vegan guest handed a plate of sides. Ask how these are collected, how they are tracked to the individual guest, and how they are served on the night so nobody has to explain themselves at the table.
What service style, and what does it do to the schedule?
Plated service, family style, buffet and stations each impose different timings and a different room layout. A buffet needs queue space and generates movement; plated service needs staff and a tighter kitchen schedule; stations spread guests around the floor, which is lovely at a reception and awkward mid-programme.
Ask the venue how long the service style you want takes for your headcount, and where it sits in the running order. Then check the rest of your schedule still fits around it.
What about drinks?
Settle this early because it is often governed by rules rather than preferences: what may be served, who may serve it, and how it is charged. Ask specifically, and ask in writing.
How is it quoted?
Menus are usually priced against guest count, cuisine and service style together, which is why a standard published price list is rare and, where one exists, usually approximate. What you want is not a number off a page but a quote against your actual event.
Ask what is included and what is extra — service, staffing, cake cutting, late-night food, dietary variants. The gaps between quotes are almost always in that list rather than in the per-head figure.
A tasting is a planning meeting
If a tasting is available, treat it as more than lunch. Bring the person whose opinion decides things, bring the dietary list, and bring the running order. You are checking the food, but you are also checking whether the people cooking it listen.
Tell us the date, the numbers and what your family eats and you will get an answer about the food, not a brochure.
The published figures
Emerald prices catering per person, across three menus covering Indian, Pakistani, Afghan and American cuisine:
- Silver, $45 per person
- Gold, $55 per person
- Platinum, $65 per person
The hall itself is $3,500, and an 18% service charge and 9.75% sales tax apply to food and applicable services. What a particular evening costs depends on the menu and the headcount, so ask the team on the contact page for a figure against your own numbers.
