Small event catering for eleven to twenty guests, planned and cooked by a private chef serving San Carlos, the Peninsula and the wider Bay Area. This boutique format bridges the gap between a dinner party and full-scale catering: a custom, globally inspired menu, presented with care and executed start to finish for a gathering that is too big for a home cook and too personal for a banquet hall.
What Boutique Catering Means Here
Most party catering is built for scale: fixed menus, trays and a delivery window. This package works the other way. The chef plans the menu with you around the occasion and your guests, shops for fresh, high-quality ingredients, and handles the full service from first prep to final
Small event catering for eleven to twenty guests, planned and cooked by a private chef serving San Carlos, the Peninsula and the wider Bay Area. This boutique format bridges the gap between a dinner party and full-scale catering: a custom, globally inspired menu, presented with care and executed start to finish for a gathering that is too big for a home cook and too personal for a banquet hall.
What Boutique Catering Means Here
Most party catering is built for scale: fixed menus, trays and a delivery window. This package works the other way. The chef plans the menu with you around the occasion and your guests, shops for fresh, high-quality ingredients, and handles the full service from first prep to final cleanup. The result feels like private catering for a celebration rather than a drop-off order, with food that matches the event instead of a generic catalog.
What's Included
Custom menu planning with the chef for your gathering.
Shopping for fresh, high-quality ingredients.
Cooking and thoughtful presentation of every dish.
Full-service execution, start to finish.
Cleanup after the meal.
Food for eleven to twenty guests, priced per person.
The Food
With more than twenty-five years of cooking across Indian, Mediterranean, Italian and Asian kitchens, the chef can shape the menu to whatever the gathering calls for. A birthday might lean into Indian street food bites and a fragrant curry with fresh breads. A holiday party might call for a Mediterranean spread, a generous cheese and charcuterie board with fruit, or handmade pasta. A family celebration can mix all of it. Dietary needs are part of the plan from the first conversation, so vegetarian, gluten-free and other guests are cooked for, not worked around. Families who have used this chef for six years and more call the food delicious, healthy and high quality, and guests rate her 4.9 out of 5 across nearly seventy reviews.
Occasions That Fit
This event catering package suits a milestone birthday, an anniversary party, a graduation or engagement gathering at home, a holiday party for friends or neighbors, a baby shower, a small team lunch or a client appreciation dinner. It is designed for hosts who want the food to be part of the memory, and who would rather talk with their guests than manage a kitchen. Twenty guests is the ceiling for this format, which keeps the menu personal, the presentation careful, and every plate cooked with the same attention.
Why Eleven to Twenty Guests Is Its Own Category
Gatherings of this size fall between two worlds. They are too big for one person to cook for while also hosting, and they are often too small for large catering companies, which tend to push fixed buffet menus, delivery windows and staffing minimums built for a hundred guests. Boutique catering solves that. One chef plans the food for your exact group, cooks it with the same care as a dinner party, and presents it so the spread looks intentional on your table or counter. Guests get food that tastes home-cooked and looks considered, and the host gets the afternoon or evening back. For a gathering you want people to remember, that difference shows up on the plate.
Planning Notes
The per-person price includes menu planning, shopping, cooking and cleanup. Requests for specialty ingredients such as wagyu, lobster or imported items are priced separately. The chef is based in San Carlos, and travel fees may apply for events outside her standard service area. Share any allergies and the style of service you want when you request to book, and the menu is built from there.
How to Book
Pick your date and guest count on this page to see the price for your group, then request to book. If your list is ten guests or fewer, the dinner party package from the same chef is the better match, and for four or fewer there is a family dinner package. For eleven to twenty, this small event catering option gives you a chef-planned menu, careful presentation and full service, all sized for a gathering where every guest still gets a real meal.
