Good taste and quality: choosing the wedding catering

Choosing the catering: some advice with the expert Galateo Ricevimenti

The catering service is one of the most important aspects of a wedding. It is the taste experience that guests will probably remember with more pleasure, and must therefore be entrusted to experts in the sector. We asked Galateo Ricevimenti for some advice on catering for a wedding in Italy.

What is the story and vision behind Galateo Ricevimenti?

Galateo Ricevimenti was founded in Florence in 1995 and, thanks to constant growth over the years, has become a leader in the Italian Catering & Banqueting industry. Today, it has a second office in Milan and over 100 qualified employees and collaborators from all over Italy.

A quarter of a century spent with clients from every corner of the world, each with very different tastes, needs and traditions. Satisfying such a varied audience is an exciting challenge that is renewed every day and which makes the entrepreneurial adventure of Galateo Ricevimenti unique. One of our dreams is to bring Made in Italy to the world… We already have experiences abroad, in particular in Los Angeles for the 2005 Oscar Night.

How do you usually develop the plan for a perfect catering service at weddings?

In over 25 years of activity, we have developed an important network of relationships with the best suppliers in Italy and in the world and organized events in all the most beautiful locations in Italy as well as collaborating with the most established wedding and event planners, with the best floral designers and with the most famous deejays, musicians and artists both Italian and international.

All couples who choose Galateo can make use of this unique network of contacts, to add something magical and special to their big day. We offer every time a specific menu designed and customized to reflect the personal and intimate nature of the wedding, making it unique and truly special. Creativity, precision, innovation and the continuous search for quality in all Galateo events are the result of a joint effort by the whole team.

What kind of advice would you give to a couple looking for a wedding caterer?

We know that catering is one of the factors that most affect the success of a wedding and the banquet is the moment that will be most remembered by the guests. To help the couple in choosing the right catering service, it is important to keep in mind some basic steps:

1.Guests, location and reception
The menu will be customized and studied ad hoc based on how many guests will be present, the style of the reception and the location. Served dinners or buffets can be prepared for both lunch and dinner and even breakfast. The layout of the tables will also depend on the available spaces: round, imperial or custom-made. We always recommend starting from these data to confirm the service with the catering and organize all the details of the reception in the best possible way.

2.Listen and taste!
It is very important to know more about the service and cooking philosophy, for example how the raw materials are chosen, which cooking techniques are adopted and how the service will be carried out: these are the factors that often make the difference! The success of the banquet will depend on the combination of flavors, the succession of dishes on offer and the serving techniques. It is therefore very important to plan a personalized tasting, where the couple will meet with the chefs to enter their world of aromas and flavors.

3.Little details that make a difference
The eye also wants its part: what makes the difference in a reception is precisely the way the table is set. Therefore, when choosing the catering service, the variety of tablecloths, porcelain, cutlery and glassware available to each supplier should not be underestimated. It is very important to schedule an appointment in the showroom where the various mise en place will be tried out, so as to already enter the magical atmosphere of the big day. The mise en place will be decisive in building the atmosphere and style of your wedding!

Each wedding menu is personalized, where does the inspiration for new proposals come from?

Galateo’s mission is to research and select the best quality ingredients, even better if they are organic and local. We strongly believe in respecting the seasons and for this reason we create specific menus for the different periods of the year, offering the freshest and tastiest food that nature offers us in every month.

Over the years we have perfected an infinite number of recipes and menus to be presented to clients with the most diverse needs. The team is trained to listen and take into consideration each specific request, and is happy to share its know-how with couples to create personalized menus that can realize the vision and desires of each individual customer without obviously forgetting the wines that accompany and enhance the flavors.

How has the wedding banquet changed over the years and what does the future hold?

Traditional weddings that have always been in everyone’s imagination, where people sat for hours at the table and where countless courses were served, are now considered static and boring. We receive more and more often from our clients the request for banquets where dynamism and diversity in the service are the basis from which to start, trying to create more emotional and better organized moments.

Today, every moment has its frame and its scenography: the pre-ceremony cocktail and the aperitifs take place in an area of the location, but for dinner you move to another space, the cutting of the cake and after-dinner also happens elsewhere.

Staticity is increasingly considered a characteristic of the past, today is overtaken by the concept of multi-disciplinarity of the event.

This harmony can only be achieved with careful attention to the smallest detail and above all by choosing a catering service that knows how to support the complexity and variability of this type of event.