Private Chef Experiences · Mendocino County
Wedding catering on the Mendocino coast
The meals around a wedding are the ones people remember — the welcome dinner where everyone finally arrives, the rehearsal down one long table, the brunch nobody thought to plan. We cook those. We also cook the wedding itself, up to fifty guests. Your venue, your rental, or the house you’ve taken for a few days, anywhere from Point Arena to Westport and inland through Anderson Valley.
Small weddings, and the meals either side
We’re at our best on the intimate end — a rehearsal dinner for twenty, a wedding of forty in a house you’ve taken for a few days, a long table under trees. Two chefs cook it themselves, and that’s the whole reason the food arrives the way it should: fish to order, things finished at the last second, nothing sitting under a lamp. That’s what this size buys you.
Over fifty guests, we’ll point you elsewhere. A reception that size wants a bigger kitchen and a bigger crew than ours, and there are caterers on this coast who do it properly. Several of them send us the smaller work and we’re glad to send it back — if one of them has your Saturday, we’ll happily take the Friday.
Twelve to thirty guests
Microweddings
Cooked at the house you’ve rented, with courses that only work at this size — fish to order, things finished at the last second. The work we’re built for.
The night before
Rehearsal dinners
The meal everybody remembers and nobody plans. One long table at your rental, while a bigger company handles the Saturday.
Most wedding quotes cover one meal. A Mendocino wedding is rarely one meal — people fly in, they stay three nights, and they eat together the whole time. Those in-between meals get the least planning and the most remembering.
- Welcome dinner — the night everyone arrives, usually the most relaxed meal of the weekend
- Rehearsal dinner — seated and served, or family-style down one long table
- The wedding itself — up to fifty guests, plated, family-style or stations, built around what’s landing and being harvested that week
- Morning-after brunch — the meal couples forget to plan and remember most fondly
What it costs
We price by the meal, not by the occasion. The wedding itself is from $250 per person, typically $275–350. Rehearsal and welcome dinners are from $215, and the morning-after brunch from $95 — a brunch is a brunch, whatever weekend it falls on. Every event carries a $1,400 minimum.
Billed separately: travel beyond 15 miles of Mendocino, extra service staff at $275 per server, wine and beverages, rentals, and gratuity. You’ll have all of it in writing before you commit to anything — see what to expect for how a real proposal reads, and our full rates for everything else we cook.
Why couples book us
- Chefs, not a rental crew. Chef Chantelle Sookram and Chef Keith Kalmanowicz cook your weekend themselves, with 15+ years of fine dining and high-volume banquet work behind them.
- We know this coast. Your menu comes from what’s actually landing at the docks and coming out of the ground the week you marry.
- We cook where you’re staying. Most of our weddings happen at private homes and rentals rather than venues with kitchens, and we’re set up for exactly that.
- One rate for the weekend. Hold the date and the number stops moving.
Good to know
Still choosing a venue? We keep write-ups of the places we cook, from the kitchen side — capacity, what the catering setup actually allows, and the questions worth asking before you sign. Start with Mendocino wedding venues.
How far ahead should we book?
As early as you can. Weddings hold a full weekend of our calendar, and September and October — the two best months to eat on this coast — book earliest of all.
Do you cook at venues, or only at rentals?
Both. Plenty of Mendocino weddings happen at private homes and vacation rentals with ordinary kitchens, and that’s completely normal for us. Tell us the property and we’ll give you a straight answer about what works there.
Can you handle dietary needs across a big guest list?
Yes, and we’d love to know early rather than the week of. Vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and allergy plates get built into the menu rather than bolted onto it.
What about wine, rentals and staff?
We’ll advise on all of it and coordinate with your rental company. Wine, rentals and extra servers are billed at cost or at the rates above — we don’t mark them up.
Do you do cake?
Dessert, absolutely. Tiered wedding cake is its own craft, and we’ll happily point you to someone who does it beautifully.
Check your date
Tell us the date, the property, and roughly how many are coming. We’ll come back with a menu, a real number, and an honest read on whether we’re the right fit.
Planning something smaller? See anniversary dinners, bachelorette weekends, retreats, or the menus.