Menus & Cuisines
Medellin Elite Catering has run evening service in Medellín since 2019, from candlelit dinners for 15 on a finca terrace to a 900-guest corporate year-end party, the largest event we have catered. Dinner is where everything we do comes together: the kitchen, the floor team, the timing and the bar.
We cater dinners for weddings, rehearsal and welcome dinners, company celebrations, milestone birthdays and private groups who have rented a villa for the week. Menus range from Antioquian classics to Mediterranean, steakhouse and seafood, all cooked under our head chef.
Clients planning from abroad can arrange everything by video call and email in English, with an itemized quote in writing, and Colombia's fixed UTC-5 time zone makes scheduling simple.
Plan your event
A full dinner service includes the menu, the cooks, the servers, chafing dishes or plates, flatware and glassware, setup and full cleanup. Tables, chairs, linens and decor are rentals we coordinate through partner suppliers and list separately on the quote.
We cater staffed dinners from 15 guests. For smaller groups, our dinner party catering sends a private chef to cook a menu in your own kitchen, starting from 2 guests.
Weddings make up a large share of our evening work, and the reception dinner usually comes with a cocktail hour, a bar and a late-night snack. Our produce comes from Antioquian farms and markets, our fish arrives on ice from both coasts, and everything is prepared in our own kitchen under Colombia's food-handling rules, Resolution 2674 of 2013.
There are three ways to serve dinner: plated, buffet and family-style. The style sets the pace of the evening, the number of staff and the table layout, so it is the first decision to make.
| Plated | Buffet | Family-style | |
|---|---|---|---|
| How it works | Each course served at the table | Guests serve themselves from chafing dishes | Shared platters set on each table |
| Feel | Formal and paced | Relaxed, plenty of choice | Warm and conversational |
| Staffing | 1 server per 10 to 12 guests | 1 server per 20 to 25 guests | Between plated and buffet |
| Time to serve 100 guests | 75 to 90 minutes for 3 courses | 30 to 40 minutes through the line | 60 to 75 minutes |
| Guest choice | Set menu, or 2 mains chosen in advance | 2 or 3 proteins and several sides | 2 proteins and 3 or 4 sides |
Plated service suits weddings and corporate award dinners with speeches between courses. Buffets fit large or mixed crowds, and family-style is our favorite for rehearsal dinner catering, because passing platters gets two families talking.
These four menus are starting points that our head chef adjusts to your guests, the season and your venue. Each is written as a plated three-course dinner and converts easily to a buffet or family-style service, and our Italian catering menu is the most requested international alternative for a seated dinner.
Start with arepa de chócolo topped with quesito and hogao, or a small cup of ajiaco. The main is pork slow-cooked in our barrel smoker as asado al barril, or sobrebarriga in creole sauce, with criolla potatoes, ripe plantain and a tomato and avocado salad, and dessert is postre de natas or brevas con arequipe, figs in milk caramel.
The starter is roasted beet and goat cheese salad with local greens and toasted seeds. For the main, guests choose rainbow trout from cold-water farms in the Antioquian highlands, or slow-roasted lamb shoulder with couscous, grilled vegetables and tzatziki, followed by a lemon olive oil cake with mora and uchuva.
Dinner opens with grilled provoleta and chorizo with lime, Argentine-grill style. The main is beef tenderloin cooked to medium and sliced to order, about 200 g per guest, with chimichurri, roasted potatoes and creamed spinach, then a dark chocolate cake made with Colombian cacao.
A corvina ceviche with mango, red onion and lime opens the meal. The main is red snapper with coconut rice, patacones and a fresh salad, Caribbean-coast style, and dessert is coconut flan.
Medellín sits in the Andes, hundreds of kilometers from both the Pacific and the Caribbean, so we confirm the catch with our fish supplier 3 days before the event. If the snapper is not up to standard that week, we tell you and switch to corvina or trout before the menu is final.
Dinner should reach the tables 60 to 90 minutes after guests arrive, after the cocktail hour and before the dancing. Serve too late and guests fill up on canapés and drinks; serve too early and the toasts crowd the meal.
| Time | What happens |
|---|---|
| 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. | Our team arrives, sets up the field kitchen and dresses the tables |
| 7:00 p.m. | Guests arrive for the cocktail hour with passed canapés |
| 8:15 p.m. | Guests take their seats for the welcome speech |
| 8:30 p.m. | Starter served |
| 9:00 p.m. | Main course, with toasts between courses |
| 9:45 p.m. | Dessert and coffee, then the dance floor opens |
| 12:00 a.m. | Standard 5-hour service ends, unless extra hours are booked |
Staffing follows the service style: 1 server per 10 to 12 guests for plated, 1 per 20 to 25 for a buffet and 1 bartender per 50 to 75 guests. Extra hours beyond the standard 5 can be added for the whole team, which matters at weddings where the party runs late.
Noise limits under Ley 1801 of 2019 also shape the evening in residential areas. A dinner in a salón social booked through our catering in Envigado team, for example, usually has to bring the music down by the time the building sets.
Questions and answers
A plated three-course dinner takes 75 to 90 minutes from starter to dessert for up to 150 guests. Each course takes 10 to 15 minutes to reach every table, and guests need another 15 to 20 minutes to eat it. Speeches between courses add time, so we agree the running order with your planner or MC beforehand.
Yes, our servers pour wine at the table throughout dinner, and our bartenders run the bar. You can buy wine through us or bring your own, and our servers chill, open and pour it in our glassware. For a three-hour dinner, plan on half a bottle for each guest who drinks wine.
Reserve your date
Send us your date, venue, guest count and preferred service style, and we will reply with a sample menu and an itemized quote within 24 hours. Prefer email? Write to info@medellincatering.com.