Medellín event catering since 2019
Catering Menus and Cuisines in Medellín
Medellin Elite Catering has cooked for weddings, offices and family parties across Medellín and the Aburrá Valley since 2019, and every one of those events started with a menu. This hub gathers all of them in one place: Colombian home cooking, Latin American favorites, international cuisines, casual party food, desserts and meals planned around the time of day.
We write menus for expats hosting friends, couples planning a destination wedding, international companies with teams in the city and local families who want a change from the usual party spread. Our bilingual coordinators send every menu in English and Spanish, and every tray we deliver carries an allergen label.
All of it comes out of our own production kitchen in Medellín, run by a team that has handled everything from a 15-guest lunch to a 900-guest year-end party. Follow a menu as written, or ask our head chef to combine dishes from several of them.
- Itemized quotes available
- Bilingual English and Spanish coordinators
Plan your event
Our Catering Menus at a Glance
Our menus fall into five families, and each one links to a page with full dishes, quantities and service options. The table shows where each cuisine fits and the service style it is most often booked with.
| Menu family | Examples | Most booked as |
|---|---|---|
| Colombian and Latin American | Empanadas, Mexican buffets, taco bars | Buffets, live stations, party trays |
| International | Italian, pasta, pizza, Indian, Jamaican, noodles | Buffets, live stations, family-style dinners |
| Casual crowd-pleasers | Sandwich platters, salads, wings, mac and cheese, finger food | Drop-off orders, cocktail parties |
| Desserts and ice cream | Dessert tables, plated desserts, ice cream | An add-on to any menu |
| Time of day | Breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner | Every format |
The service style shapes an event more than the cuisine does. A drop-off hot buffet arrives in insulated Cambro carriers with chafing dishes, a full-service buffet adds servers at 1 per 20 to 25 guests, and a plated three-course dinner needs 1 server per 10 to 12 guests plus cooks finishing plates on site.
Your quote depends on the guest count, the menu, the service style, the venue and the date, and you can request one on our quote request page. Our service styles hub explains each format, and the dietary menus hub covers vegan, gluten-free and allergy-friendly versions of everything below.
Colombian and Latin American Menus
Colombian food runs through every menu we cook, even the international ones. A pasta buffet might open with patacones and hogao, and a Mexican spread in December often ends with buñuelos and natilla.
Our Antioquian menus feature bandeja paisa served buffet-style, sancocho de gallina, chicharrón, arepas de chócolo with quesito and pork cooked for hours in our barrel smoker as asado al barril. From the rest of the country we bring ajiaco from Bogotá, posta negra cartagenera from the Caribbean coast and whole lechona for big family parties.
Three Latin menus have their own pages. Our empanada catering covers fried corn and baked wheat empanadas with fresh ají, from party trays to a live frying station. Mexican catering is a full menu of enchiladas, mole and tamales, and taco bar catering is the build-your-own version for casual crowds.
Our buyers shop at Plaza Minorista José María Villa, the big covered market in central Medellín, for plantains, yuca, herbs and tropical fruit. Beef, pork and chicken come from Antioquian suppliers, which keeps the Colombian dishes honest and the supply steady through both rainy seasons.
International Menus
International menus are what visitors and expats ask for when they miss home, and what a mixed crowd needs when nobody shares the same food traditions. We cook them with imported staples where those matter and Antioquian produce everywhere else.
Italian is our deepest international menu. Italian catering is a full meal in courses, from antipasti to tiramisu made with Colombian coffee, while pasta catering and pizza catering bring a live station to your event, with pasta tossed to order or pizza baked in a mobile oven.
Further afield, Indian catering brings curries, dal and basmati rice cooked with whole spices, and Jamaican catering brings jerk chicken, rice and peas and fried plantain. For lighter or faster service, noodle catering covers stir-fried noodles and noodle bowls from across Asia.
Some ingredients take planning in Colombia. When an imported spice, cheese or chile is short, we say so at the quote stage and propose the closest substitute instead of quietly changing the dish.
Casual Crowd-Pleasers
Casual menus suit offices, kids' parties, watch parties and any event where guests eat standing up or between other activities. They travel well, so most go out as drop-off orders, booked 48 hours ahead.
Sandwich platter catering covers boxed lunches and shared platters on fresh bread, packed in compostable boxes with an allergen label on each. Salad catering adds big composed salads and grain bowls built on local greens, avocado and tropical fruit.
Wing catering and mac and cheese catering are the comfort food that football nights and North American holidays call for. For receptions and cocktail parties, our finger food catering menu plans 8 to 12 bites per guest across two hours.
Desserts and Ice Cream
Dessert can be a single plated course, a full table or a cart parked beside the dance floor. Colombian sweets such as tres leches, postre de natas, obleas with arequipe, buñuelos and natilla sit comfortably next to cheesecake, brownies and fruit tarts.
Our dessert catering page covers dessert tables, plated desserts and mini pastries for weddings and parties. Ice cream catering covers scooped ice cream and sorbets in flavors like lulo, maracuyá and guanábana, which suit the afternoon heat at a pool party or a finca.
Menus for Every Time of Day
Some hosts start from the clock rather than the cuisine. These four pages plan the menu around the meal, with formats and portions that suit the hour.
| Meal | Usual serving window | Signature dishes |
|---|---|---|
| Breakfast | 6:30 to 10:00 a.m. | Calentado, arepa with quesito, huevos pericos |
| Brunch | 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. | Egg station, waffles, fresh juices |
| Lunch | Noon to 2:00 p.m. | Soup, rice, protein, juice, dessert |
| Dinner | 7:00 to 10:00 p.m. | Plated courses, buffets, family-style platters |
Breakfast catering covers Colombian and continental breakfasts, office breakfast meetings and surprise breakfast deliveries. Brunch catering is our weekend and farewell-brunch menu, with egg stations and a mimosa bar.
Lunch catering follows the Colombian habit of making midday the main meal, from soup to dessert. Dinner catering covers plated, buffet and family-style evening menus for 15 to 900 guests.
Menu Tastings
A tasting lets you try the menu before you commit. Weddings and events over 80 guests get a tasting for 2 at our kitchen, with each dish cooked on the same line that will cook it for your event.
We serve a selection of dishes from your draft menu, and you can adjust seasoning, portion size and presentation before the final version goes into the quote. Our head chef sits in, so questions about sourcing or substitutions get answered on the spot.
Book the tasting once you have a draft menu and a date on hold, ideally 2 to 3 months before a wedding. Tastings run Monday to Saturday, and a partner who is still abroad can join by video call.
Questions and answers
Menu Questions
Can I mix cuisines in one menu?
Yes, and many of our events do. A common pairing is a Colombian cocktail hour of empanadas and patacones followed by an Italian pasta station, or a taco bar finished with a table of Colombian desserts. We give each cuisine its own section of the buffet with labels in English and Spanish, so guests know what they are choosing.
Are sample menus available to download?
We send sample menus as PDF files, one per cuisine, by email rather than as public downloads on the site. Ask through the quote form or write to info@medellincatering.com with your date and guest count, and the PDFs arrive with your itemized quote. Each one lists the dishes, the portions per guest and the service styles that cuisine suits.
Reserve your date
Start Planning Your Menu
Tell us the occasion, the guest count and the cuisines you are drawn to, and we will send a draft menu with an itemized quote within 24 hours. Prefer email? Write 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)