Wild Tastes Catering

When we first decided to book the Orchard Pavilion for our wedding, we were told that there was a preferred caterer that would save us a lot of time and money because this caterer was already approved to work with the Orchard Pavilion.  We were a bit concerned about how good things would turn out if we weren't able to bring a caterer of our choosing.  We could not have been more wrong about our concerns.  We, and our guests, loved the food.  We are glad we decided to go with Wild Tastes Catering and Chef Cecilia instead of trying to find an outside caterer.Chef Cecilia is a very versatile.  She will suggest specialties that were successful at previous events she's catered and these specialities are in no way limited to any specific ethnicity of food.  You will have lots of great options regardless of your personal preferences.Cecilia provided us with the opportunity to do a "tasting dinner."  Our tasting dinner price included food for 8 people; it was a great way to get a sense of what to expect.  Since we were using both Orchard Pavilion and Wild Tastes Catering, Cecilia was actually our site designer as well.  At this dinner, Cecilia dressed several tables in varying linens to give us ideas for our own wedding settings.  We talked about glasses, plates, silverware, napkins, table linens, centerpieces, etc etc.  Cecilia has done so many weddings that she was often suggesting items that we forgot to ask about - extremely helpful.We told Chef Cecilia that our greatest concern for our wedding was a memorable meal.  We have a lot of friends that are foodies and we really wanted to leave them with something to talk about.  Cecilia was great at recommending items that would serve well in a buffet setting; steering us away from choices that we agreed were good but wouldn't hold up well in a buffet setting - definitely useful wisdom.At our tasting dinner, Cecilia recommended a decorator that she often works with to handle our table settings and chairs.  During the discussion about chair covers and embellishments for our chairs, Cecilia mentioned rhinestone accents.  At the time, we weren't keen on the idea of rhinestones and decided to go with plain chairs (we have modern, minimalist preferences) - no covers, no other decorations, just plain chiavari chairs.On the day of our wedding, we arrived at the Orchard Pavilion, entered the reception room and found our chairs in black covers with rhinestones.  Rather than being appalled, we were amazed at how great they looked.  Cecilia pointed out that her decorator had setup all of our tables and found that the chairs weren't tying in with our black/white/red color theme.Cecilia's decorator told her the chairs would look much more elegant dressed in a black cover with a white sash accent tied back with a rhinestone buckle.  Cecilia has worked with this decorator for a long time and trusts her judgment and made the executive decision to change our original design request.  We are ever so thankful for that change, the tables looked much more elegant than what we thought we liked at our tasting dinner.  We really appreciated the fact that Cecilia respected the spirit of our design aesthetic but used her experience to help us improve on it.As for the food on our wedding day, we couldn't have been more pleased.  We had guests raving from the first round of hors d'oeuvres until the very end.  To be specific, we had guests who don't care for mushrooms raving that the stuff mushroom appetizers were to die for.  The servers and staff that we hired through Cecilia were courteous and ever so helpful.  It really gave our reception an upscale feel and allowed guests to mingle so much better.For myself, all of the food was wonderful but the best example of Chef Cecilia's skill, in my opinion, was her wild greens with figs.  That salad had amazing balance and the figs were a hit with myself and many guests.  A chef's skill at making even simple dishes like a salad a worthy peer to great main course items is not a common skill to come by.I cannot recommend Wild Tastes Catering enough.  We are very thankful that Chef Cecilia helped to make our wedding a night to remember.  We have other important life events coming that we intend to use Wild Tastes Catering and Chef Cecilia to make into unforgettable memories. More...

Reviewed on Yelp

We wanted Punjabi food for our reception so we  had Chef Devinder from Wildtastes cater it. He had a great selection during the food tasting, we had some more items we wanted to try and a few adjustments we wanted to make. He made these items so we could try his food again before the big day. On the day of his food was still excellent, as the bride I actually got to eat and enjoy the food (craving it as I write this review right now). He did a good job with decor/set up of the food. He was also excellent at communicating (email and text). He also came with me to my reception venue (which he had been to before) to give recommendations to where to set up the cocktail, dinner and dessert tables and to talk to the venue coordinator so everything runs smoothly on the day off. We highly recommend him! More...

Reviewed on Yelp

Best cater, great food, easy to work with extremely friendly. Highly recommend for any event. !

Reviewed on Facebook

Chef Cecilia Garza, of Wild Tastes Catering, created the perfect Wedding Reception for our son and new daughter in law. Trained at the Culinary Academy, Cecilia exceeded our wildest expectations with the delicious food and the beautiful décor. Since our daughter in law is from out of town, much of the correspondence was through email, which Cecilia responded to promptly and professionally. She went out of her way to make the Bride feel special, and all the guests, as well. Her staff is professional, efficient and friendly, attentive to all the guests, making sure that everyone was well cared for. Cecilia coordinated the program with our DJ , our photographer  and the Bride, to ensure that everything went smoothly, even when we had to move everything inside at the last minute  because of rain. I would highly recommend Chef Cecilia and Wild Tastes Catering, and intend to hire her for our next event. More...

Reviewed on Yelp

Chef Cecilia has catered our tennis club monthly dinners for more than three years,and we feel most fortunate to have found her.  With such good cheer, she delivers to amember's home or clubhouse ready-to-serve, palate pleasing dinners for 30 - 40, appetizers and dessert.  Always on time and memorable. Her imaginative menus from a variety of ethnic themed cuisines live up to her "Wild Tastes" business name, and from Mediterranean feasts to Hawaiian luaus, we've thoroughly enjoyed each one. Cecilia and her crew also accommodate our special requests and we are always delighted with the creative ways she makes our evenings new and unique.  Often we have to choose between one of her tempting new dishes or enjoying once again a favorite menu item that garnered raves from our members. Cecilia is a joy to work with and she makes our Social Director's job that much easier.Her willingness to work with our pretty tight budget pleases our Treasurer.  Our entire membership is her own fan club. In 2014, we anticipate more of the efficient and friendly way Cecilia and her crewprovides outstanding dinner cuisines prepared with fresh ingredients. Tom G, President, Bay Area Tennis for Singles More...

Reviewed on Yelp

Chef Cecilia and Wild Tastes Catering did a fantastic job on my husband's 50th Birthday party. The food is fantastic. We did oysters, salmon, and shrimp cocktail appetizers followed by a wonderful stuffed chx breast and tri tip with roasted veggies. The cake was really delicious too. Everything was so fresh and prepared with perfectly balanced herbs and spices. We're foodies, so we really are picky. Our guests all raved about the food. The next thing I'd like to relate is that working with Cecilia is a treat in itself. She is so easy going, communicative, professional, flexible, yet totally in charge of her business. I could sense that she first set about to determine what I wanted. Having a large party can bring out a lot of nervousness and perhaps some over-controlling of the agenda. I got the feeling Cecilia could deal with all of that. If I had strong desires to do something one way or the other, she accommodated. Where I was looking for guidance, she stepped right up to provide it. She's really a 5 star professional. (Prices were reasonable as well). More...

Reviewed on Yelp

My cousin hired Wild Tastes Catering for her wedding and WOW!  The food fantastic and hot when served. I have been to other wedding with outside catering and I have yet to have a hot dinner. The food was out on time, hot and delicious.  And not only was the food amazing, but the bar tenders held their own as well. No one was waiting for their drink. They were fun, friendly, and professional! More...

Reviewed on Yelp

We are so glad we hired Wild Tastes Catering for our wedding yesterday!  Their food was delicious, their service was friendly and professional, and Cecilia herself was a joy to work with.  Because I am a vegetarian for ethical reasons, we gave them the challenge of an all-vegetarian reception for an almost all meat-eating guest list, and they really rose to it.  We got so many compliments from our guests about the food!  We looked at several caterers during our research and most were insanely expensive, so that left us with Wild Tastes and another caterer as the ones that could match our budget (our goal was about $6000 for 100 guests).  After going to the tasting for the other caterer and being quite disappointed, we were losing hope of finding someone who could do good vegetarian food, but Wild Tastes went over and beyond our expectations.  Our buffet menu was:- spanakopita- three kinds of bruschetta (some unique flavors in there that I think Cecilia may have invented)- mixed salad- roasted vegetables- butternut squash lasagna (creamy and cheesy and awesome)- malai kofta (very tasty and authentic)- basmati riceTo top it off, Cecilia also let us store drinks and flowers in her fridge earlier in the week.  She even let our moms arrange flowers in her kitchen the day before the wedding, which was a huge help since the venue was right next door and it saved us a lot of headache transporting them.  Thank you Wild Tastes Catering! More...

Reviewed on Yelp

Disclaimer: my wife has also written a Yelp review for the same event.  That being said, Wild Tastes did such a fantastic job with our wedding that I have to write a review!  Chef Cecilia is awesome!  She is so friendly and really easy to work with.  The day before the wedding our mothers (of the bride and of the groom) were at the venue arranging flowers, and Cecilia made them lunch.  Nuff said.  Cecilia was more than willing to accommodate everyone involved in our wedding, lending her kitchen and fridge space for the cake and for flowers.  It was a pleasure to work with her.So how was the food?  Short version, excellent!  Long version, my wife is vegetarian and wanted to have an all vegetarian wedding.  We were really concerned that our guests would not find anything they liked to eat.  Well, Wild Tastes delivered!  We got compliments on the food throughout the wedding, and both my wife and I personally loved the food.What about the service on the day of?  Again, excellent.  We got the venue pretty late (it was booked in the morning) so the window to set up was kind of short.  But they had all the tablecloths on and the silverware set well before the event started.  Everything went super smoothly - we had a buffet lunch, and they kept the line moving so everyone could get food as quickly as possible, while waiters went table to table with plates of appetizers.  We had supplied our own beer and wine, and Wild Tastes had someone staff the bar for us.  Again, everything just worked like a well oiled machine.In short, I was really nervous about many things during the day, but not one of them was about the catering.  They did a fantastic job! More...

Reviewed on Yelp

Last year my husband and I hired Wild Tastes Catering to cater our daughter's and son-in-law's wedding reception (9/24/11).  Cecilia Garza Ruiz the Owner and Chef was very professional.  She helped arrange a wonderful menu for our guests as well as made great suggestions for our reception.  We received many compliments about her staff and the delicious food that was prepared.We have hired Wild Tastes Catering again for our other daughter's wedding reception this coming September!! We can not say enough how thankful we are for the great Service Cecilia and her team provided. More...

Reviewed on Yelp