Savoury Chef Catering & Events — Local services in Vancouver

We hired Savoury Chef to cater our wedding in the spring. I was thrilled and looking forward to working with this company, but was left feeling very disappointed with our experience.

At the start of our event planning, everything was on track and going smoothly, but as we got closer to our wedding date, we felt that the coordination by Savoury chef became very disorganized.

We received our final invoice just days shy of our wedding and it was significantly more than we had expected to pay (SC had forgotten to include the chefs and some of the rentals on our previous invoice). We also discovered several other rental/billing errors during our planning, which made us feel uncomfortable, especially when they initially appeared to avoid our requests to look into it.

The food that was served during our reception was excellent, and the serving staff were great, however they served someone else’s wine during our dinner and cocktail hour (despite being the only vendor with the wine list and responsible for serving the wine). Also, the beef, one of our main courses, was served late and as the last course, when guests had almost finished eating. Even after learning about the wine mixup, our coordinator never acknowledged the error or offered us an explanation.

Unfortunately, we felt that the new owner and staff were not genuinely interested in our experience nor were they receptive to the feedback that we provided. We were left feeling undeserving of their time despite having spent a considerable amount of money. Savoury chef added a significant amount of unnecessary stress to our wedding planning and day, and based on our experience I cannot recommend them for...

We had a taco party where all the food was dropped off 2 hours before to be reheated.

Nothing was labeled and there were no instructions. We were able to figure out a couple of things but we definitely heated something that shouldn't have been heated. Maybe the food to be heated should have had foil and the cold things should have been cling wrapped? Something to make it easy for us.

As there were no labels, we had to repeatedly tell people what we thought was what and what dishes we thought were vegan and vegetarian. I spoke to a few vegetarian employees who now tell me they only ate the salads because they didn't know what was safe for them

Here is the reality, I never had anyone tell me they enjoyed the food, and we threw away more food at this event than we ever have. In the 10 years we've been doing these events, we've never had as negative a response to the catering as this year. Everyone did like the Jacama salad though.

One thing I found interesting was I asked for a certain dish to not have cheese in it and was told that it is not possible. I'm not sure how that makes sense but I was told twice that it was premade, apparently weeks in advance? Or is it purchased from a supplier premade?

I can't speak to their regular catering as it looks like many others enjoy their food, but I believe that the taco party is one to avoid. And definitely avoid the cactus if you do choose to have a taco party. It was really not very good at all.

I think we could have easily prepared as good or better food for a lot less money and without a lot of effort. The taco...

I called Savoury Chef a week before New Year’s Eve as we were were travelling to Vancouver to visit family and wanted to host a small New Year’s Eve dinner at our son’s house. We spoke with Leigh and she couldn’t have been more pleasant, helpful and accommodating to pull together a wonderful Family Style meal with appetizers and desserts. The food was outstanding including the very nice china serving dishes, utensils, condiments and very professional menu cards to signal to Gusts what each dish was. (every detail was thought of). Our format was heat and serve with all items cooks appropriately for reheating. Portion sizes were also very generous with left overs for many. I should also mention Leigh’s ability to assist with dietary concerns. (GF). Finally I will mention that Savoury Chef’s pricing was very reasonable given the quality and level of service. I do not write many positive reviews as I tend to be a little difficult to please, by my own admission. If you are looking for a caterer for your event, I don’t think you could find a better choice from beginning to end. Thank you Leigh for making this happen for us on short notice (especiaon one of your busiest nights of the year). If you have any friends in Ontario who can pull this off, let us know. We look forward to using you again when we return to Vancouver. Todd and Marcia Finlayson (forgive the pictures, these were taken informally as we...