MEDINA CUISINE — Local services in North Bethesda

We used Medina for our wedding. I wish our review of Medina could be more enthusiastic. We had such a joyous wedding, and everyone was happy with the food. But while the food was quite good, their business practices leave much to be desired.

The day-of service was generally good, but there were clearly issues with communication with the bar staff. Despite the fact that there was plenty of beer at the event (we even took 6 cases home), the bartenders apparently didn’t know where they were and told some guests that we were out. Additionally, my wife was asked what one of our signature cocktails was when she requested it, despite the fact that we had provided recipes months ahead and made signage for the day of.

These minor service issues weren’t a big deal, but the frustrating and unprofessional experience we had with Medina’s billing was. Before the wedding, we received a "final" invoice from Medina only after emailing 5 times over the course of a month, which we promptly paid. After the wedding, they emailed stating that we actually owed about 15% more than we'd already paid. After much back and forth, we established that more than $500 of the extra charge was an arithmetic error, another portion was explicitly included in what we had already paid (so they "graciously" waived it), and part was "overtime" fees for staff that they somehow hadn't anticipated, even though the event ran according to the schedule we'd provided over a month ahead of time.

They refused to compromise, meet us halfway, or provide a discount based on the fact that we'd budgeted based on the "final" invoice they'd provided. We are certain we did not have to pay this extra fee according to the contract, which required that we be notified of overtime charges ahead of time, but decided to pay up to be done dealing with Medina.

Unfortunately, our experience really left a sour taste in our mouth after a really joyous day. Bottom line from our experience with Medina: food is good, but don't trust that invoices are final, clear, or even...

Punchline: Michael and the entire Medina Cuisine team went above and beyond to plan an incredibly special, well presented and delicious weekend of kosher meals for our destination wedding. Medina's Team: We planned our wedding in the Chesapeake Bay, over a couple of hours from Michael's home-base, but he executed a flawless weekend of events. His chef and team were incredible, especially during covid when the hotel where the weekend was held was battling staffing challenges/shortages. The events: We had casual shabbat meals (Friday night and Saturday lunch) for 50 people where Michael was flexible in catering to our needs and request for more laid back and casual meals. We had a Saturday evening cocktail style welcome reception for 200 guests that required intense preparation to be prepared to start cooking as soon as shabbat ended. And then the wedding on Sunday was a black tie affair with cocktail hour and plated reception. Each of the events were executed without flaw, with amazing presentation and delicious food. Some of our non-kosher guests remarked how they were surprised Kosher food could taste so good! Anyways, Lara and I highly highly highly recommend Michael and his team at...

I would highly recommend Medina Cuisine. We used them as the caterer for our wedding, and we were highly satisfied with the quality of the food, the level of professionalism, and the degree of flexibility. We had a dairy/vegetarian wedding, and were worried about finding a kosher caterer that could do that well. Michael assured us that they did dairy events all of the time, and he created a sample menu for us. From there, we provided our feedback to determine exactly what we wanted for the wedding. We wanted to provide our own alcohol and to work with a separate rentals vendor to help keep costs down, and Medina was more than willing to work with all of our vendors to provide us with what we needed. At every turn, they were accommodating and honest. In the end, we were quite pleased with everything that they provided, and were glad to have them participate in such an...