Vegetarian
Our vegetarian catering covers menus without meat, poultry or fish that may still include eggs, cheese and dairy. Picture arepas de chócolo with melted quesito, eggplant lasagna and a bandeja paisa built around red beans.
Medellín event catering since 2019
Special Diet and Allergy-Friendly Catering in Medellín
Medellin Elite Catering plans menus for guests who eat vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, allergy-aware or low-sugar, at weddings, office events and family parties across Medellín and the Aburrá Valley. We have cooked for events since 2019, and nearly every guest list has carried at least one special diet.
International groups tend to bring the widest mix of needs, from plant-based wellness retreats to colleagues with celiac disease. Our bilingual coordinators gather those details in English or Spanish and turn them into one menu with clear labels, so no guest has to explain their diet twice.
This section covers how our kitchen separates, labels and serves dietary food, where its limits are, and which dietary menu fits your event.
- Itemized quotes available
- Bilingual English and Spanish coordinators
Plan your event
Menus That Work for Every Guest
An inclusive menu is one where most dishes suit most diets, so guests with special needs eat from the same buffet as everyone else. We design menus that way first, and add individual plates only where a dish truly cannot be shared.
In practice that means corn arepas in place of wheat rolls, beans cooked without pork, a vegetable sancocho beside the chicken one and dressings served on the side. A buffet of nine dishes for 80 people will often have six that already suit vegetarian and gluten-free guests with no changes at all.
The lonely plate of grilled vegetables handed to the one vegan at a wedding is exactly what we work to avoid. Guests notice when their food looks like an afterthought, and they also notice when it tastes as good as everything else on the table.
Dietary Menus We Offer
We offer five dietary menus, and each has its own page with dishes, preparation details and sample menus. Many events combine two or three of them, and your quote states how many plates of each we will prepare.
Vegan
With vegan catering, nothing on the plate comes from an animal: no dairy, eggs, honey, gelatin or butter. Coconut milk, lentils, chickpeas and local mushrooms carry the flavor instead.
Gluten-Free and Celiac
Our gluten-free catering leans on Colombia's corn, yuca and plantain traditions. Celiac guests also get a dedicated fryer, separate boards and sealed transport for their food.
Allergy-Friendly
Allergy-friendly catering handles nuts, peanuts, shellfish, fish, eggs, dairy, soy and any other ingredient a guest names. Severe allergies get a named plate, prepared with purple-coded equipment and served before the rest of the table.
Diabetic-Friendly
For guests managing blood sugar, diabetic-friendly catering means balanced plates, reduced-sugar desserts and approximate carbohydrate counts per serving. We give nutrition information, never medical advice.
How We Prevent Cross-Contact
Cross-contact is when a safe food picks up an allergen, such as a crumb of wheat or a smear of butter, and we prevent it by separating dietary food at every step from storage to service. In our production kitchen in Medellín, dietary dishes are cooked first in the day's schedule, on cleaned and sanitized surfaces, before wheat flour or nuts are opened.
| Stage | Control |
|---|---|
| Buying | Every packaged ingredient's label is checked, including "puede contener" (may contain) warnings |
| Storage | Lidded, labeled containers on the top shelves of the cold room, above anything with wheat or nuts |
| Prep | Purple-handled boards, knives and tongs reserved for allergy and celiac food; fresh gloves |
| Cooking | One fryer used only for corn, yuca, plantain and potato; separate pans and spoons |
| Transport | Own insulated Cambro carrier, lids taped and labeled; hot above 60 °C, cold below 5 °C |
| Service | One serving utensil per dish; named plates served first by a briefed server |
Our kitchen also handles wheat, nuts, dairy and shellfish, so we never call it allergen-free or certified gluten-free. What we commit to is the set of controls above, applied at every event, and a straight answer when a request goes beyond them.
Labels and Allergen Cards on the Buffet
Every dish on our buffets has a printed card with its name in English and Spanish, its diet tags and the allergens it contains. Tags carry color bands so guests can read the table from a few steps away: green for vegan, yellow for vegetarian, blue for gluten-free, orange for reduced sugar and purple for a plate made for one named guest.
Allergens are listed by name under the tags, using the eight groups in Colombia's labeling rule for packaged food, Resolution 5109 of 2005: cereals with gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts and soy, milk, tree nuts and sulfites. That rule applies to packaged products rather than freshly cooked catering, but using its list means our cards match what guests already read on supermarket labels.
Each dish keeps its own serving spoon, and servers swap any utensil that wanders into the wrong tray. When a guest asks something a server cannot answer with certainty, the server checks the recipe sheet with the event coordinator instead of guessing.
Collecting Dietary Needs From Your Guests
The simplest method is one question on your RSVP, answered by a firm deadline and sent to us with the final headcount. These four steps keep the list accurate and save last-minute surprises on the day.
Add One Question to Your RSVP
Wording that works well: "Do you have any dietary requirements or food allergies? Please name the food and how serious the reaction is." Asking about severity matters, because a guest who dislikes mushrooms and a guest with an anaphylactic shellfish allergy need very different handling.
Set the Deadline Before Ours
Ask guests to reply a few days before our final headcount date, which is 7 days before the event or 10 days for weddings. That buffer gives you time to chase the guests who forget to answer.
Send Us One List
A simple spreadsheet with guest name, table number, diet and severity is ideal, sent to info@medellincatering.com or attached to your quote request. For seated dinners, table numbers let servers deliver each named plate without asking around the room.
Review Our Dietary Plan
We reply with a dietary plan showing which buffet dishes each guest can eat, who receives a named plate and what is on it. You confirm it, and the plan becomes the briefing sheet our team reads before service.
Questions and answers
Dietary Catering Questions
What notice do you need for allergy menus?
Send the dietary list with your final headcount, which is 7 days before the event or 10 days before a wedding. Drop-off orders need 48 hours for vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free trays, and severe allergies are best mentioned in your first quote request. We handle late changes when we can do so safely, and we tell you plainly when we cannot.
Can you prepare kosher or halal meals?
No, we are not kosher or halal certified, and we never describe our food as either. We can cook menus without pork, shellfish or alcohol and keep meat and dairy dishes completely apart, which suits many guests who follow these traditions less strictly. For guests who need certified meals, we can heat and serve sealed meals from a certified supplier you choose, kept in their original packaging.
Reserve your date
Plan a Menu Every Guest Can Eat
Send your date, guest count and the diets on your list through the quote form, and we will return an itemized quote within 24 hours. Questions about a specific allergy can go to info@medellincatering.com.
- Itemized quotes available
- Menus, staff, tableware, setup and cleanup in one quote
- Food-handler certified team and labeled allergens on every tray
- Monday to Saturday
- 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
- Sunday
- Closed (events still run)