Menus & Cuisines
Italian Catering in Medellín
Medellin Elite Catering cooks Italian menus for dinners, wedding receptions and corporate lunches across Medellín, from a four-course plated meal to long tables of shared platters. Our kitchen has prepared Italian dishes for the city's events since 2019, alongside the Colombian food we are known for.
Italian is often the menu that unites a mixed group: the Colombian family, the guests flying in from Europe or North America and the friends who simply want a good lasagna. We cook it the Italian way, in courses, with real Parmigiano Reggiano and good olive oil, and we use Antioquian produce wherever it matches the imported version.
This page covers the full Italian meal. Live pasta and pizza stations have their own pages.
- Itemized quotes available
- Bilingual English and Spanish coordinators
Plan your event
Our Italian Catering
Our Italian catering is a complete menu: antipasti, a pasta or risotto course, a meat or fish main and dessert, served plated, family-style or as a buffet. It suits rehearsal and welcome dinners, wedding receptions, anniversary dinners and corporate lunches where a host wants food that international visitors recognize.
Several Italian staples come from Colombian farms: fresh mozzarella and burrata from highland dairies, basil, arugula and cherry tomatoes from growers in eastern Antioquia, and veal shanks for osso buco from local butchers. Parmigiano Reggiano, prosciutto di Parma, arborio rice and canned San Marzano tomatoes are imported, and we buy them from Medellín importers so the dishes taste the way they should.
If you would rather have a live station than a full meal, our pasta catering and pizza catering cook to order in front of guests. For a broader look at evening formats and timing, our dinner catering page compares plated, buffet and family-style service.
An Italian Menu in Courses
A traditional Italian meal has four courses: antipasti, primo, secondo and dolce, with a vegetable contorno served beside the main. At events we serve all four at a seated dinner and usually merge the primo and secondo at lunch.
| Course | What it is | Dishes we serve |
|---|---|---|
| Antipasti | Starters to share | Burrata with tomatoes and basil, bruschetta, vitello tonnato, a board of prosciutto, salami, olives and pecorino |
| Primo | Pasta, risotto or soup | Lasagna alla bolognese, wild mushroom risotto, ricotta and spinach ravioli with sage butter, minestrone |
| Secondo | Meat or fish main | Osso buco alla milanese with gremolata, chicken saltimbocca, roasted corvina with lemon and capers, beef tagliata with arugula |
| Contorno | Vegetable side with the main | Rosemary potatoes, grilled vegetables, sautéed greens with garlic |
| Dolce | Dessert | Tiramisu, panna cotta with mora sauce, lemon tart, affogato |
Portions are smaller than in a single-plate meal: about 80 g of dried pasta or risotto rice per guest for the primo and 160 to 180 g of protein for the secondo. Osso buco needs about 3 hours of braising, so it is cooked the day before, chilled in our blast chiller and reheated in the sauce, which deepens the flavor.
Tiramisu is our most requested dolce, soaked in espresso brewed from Colombian specialty coffee. Mascarpone is hard to buy in volume in Medellín, so we make our own from local cream when the order is large.
Family-Style Italian Dinners
Family-style means large platters set in the middle of each table for guests to pass and share, the way Italian families eat on Sundays. It is less formal than a plated dinner and more generous than a buffet, because nobody has to queue.
A family-style Italian dinner starts with an antipasti board for every 8 to 10 guests, followed by two pastas served together, then a main platter with two sides. Each table gets serving spoons, olive oil, grated Parmigiano and bread, and servers swap empty platters for full ones as the meal goes on.
It works best with long or round tables of 8 to 12, and it needs about 15 cm more table space per guest than plated service, to leave room for the platters. Rehearsal dinners, family reunions and team dinners after an offsite are where this format really earns its place. Our catering in El Poblado team sets many of these tables in homes and on rooftops, and we also bring them to fincas in Llanogrande and Rionegro.
Wine Pairing
Italian food is built around wine, and we suggest a pairing for each course of the menu. Colombia produces very little wine, so most bottles at events here are Chilean, Argentine or imported from Italy, and South American bottles are the easiest to source in quantity.
With antipasti we suggest a prosecco or a crisp white such as pinot grigio or a Chilean sauvignon blanc. With pasta in tomato sauce, a Chianti or Montepulciano d'Abruzzo works well, and with osso buco or beef, a Barbera, an Argentine Malbec or a Chilean Carménère.
A Moscato d'Asti or a small glass of limoncello finishes the meal. For 60 guests we usually suggest about 30 bottles across the evening, split between white and red, and you can buy them through us or bring your own for our servers to pour.
Our servers chill prosecco and whites to about 8 °C in ice tubs and keep reds in the shade below 18 °C. On a warm terrace an open bottle of red heats up within the hour, so we open reds a few at a time rather than all at once.
Questions and answers
Italian Catering FAQs
Do you make fresh pasta?
Yes, we make fresh egg pasta in our kitchen for tagliatelle, pappardelle, lasagna sheets and filled pastas such as ravioli. For penne, rigatoni and spaghetti we use imported bronze-cut dried pasta, which grips sauce better than fresh. Our pasta catering page covers the live pasta station.
Can you do a vegetarian Italian menu?
Yes, Italian cooking is one of the easiest cuisines to make fully vegetarian. A typical menu is burrata with tomatoes, wild mushroom risotto, eggplant parmigiana and tiramisu. Traditional Parmigiano Reggiano is made with animal rennet, so for strict vegetarians we switch to a hard cheese made with vegetable rennet.
Reserve your date
Bring Italy to Your Table in Medellín
Share your date, guest count and preferred service style, and we will send an Italian menu with an itemized quote within 24 hours. You can also 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)