Top North Carolina Wedding Caterers in Raleigh, NC, and the Triangle
No wedding is complete without delicious food. You should book your caterer as soon as you secure a wedding date and venue, or nine to 18 months in advance. When it comes to North Carolina wedding caterers, you’ve got lots of options. Whether you choose a buffet, stations, plated meal or family-style dinner, this guide will help you find the North Carolina wedding caterer that fits your preferences. Keep in mind guests with dietary restrictions or special preferences like vegan, vegetarian, dairy- or gluten-free diets. Don’t forget about signature cocktails, specialty rentals like elevated serving stations and late-night snacks!
We’ve got the scoop on the top North Carolina wedding caterers and what makes them stand out! If you want your wedding day cuisine to be uniquely delicious, keep reading!
How to Budget for Wedding Catering in North Carolina
Expect to spend $32-$100 per guest for food. Budget using this rule of thumb for the bar: One to two drinks per guest, per hour. Remember, prices will increase when labor gratuities and taxes are added to the final cost. We suggest budgeting at least $50 per guest. A mid-tier liquor package costs about $3,200 for 100 guests. Be sure to include meals for your photographer, videographer, catering staff and any other vendors who will be actively present at your reception.
Meet Raleigh, Durham and Triangle NC Wedding Caterers
Left: Cold curry lobster salad with arugula, mint and watermelon and garlic vinaigrette. Right: Puff pastry with fresh blackberries and jam, rosé crystals, sliced almonds and ricotta spread.
Virginia & Co.
Chef Natelege Bryant and her elevated soul food have taken the delicious Durham food scene by storm. Her name means “joy,” and that’s exactly what your wedding guests will feel when they take a bite of her cuisine. Chef Natelege founded Virginia & Co. in 2017, naming the company after her grandmother who let her play in the kitchen as a child. Delight your guests with opulent grazing tables as large as 20 feet long and stocked generously with artisan cheeses and seasonal fruit in addition to chef-attended carving stations. Or, choose from plated, family-style or buffet meals. Elevate your reception with one of Natelege’s late-night snack stations. Virginia & Co. offers options like a s’mores station or even a doughnut wall!
Left: Braised short ribs with creamy mascarpone grits. Right: Chickpea cakes with tomato jam.
Are there any wedding trends from the past few years that you believe are going to stick around for a while? “We have seen an uptick in action stations as couples are moving toward less formal receptions. During the pandemic, we also reimagined something that we are known for – grazing tables – and have started offering individual charcuterie boards during cocktail hour!”
Left: Pickled Beet deviled eggs with caviar. Right: Mini charcuterie boards.
What’s the most inventive or innovative dish or plating you’ve created for a wedding? “One of the most fun things that we had a chance to plate was a deconstructed banana pudding. We also love playing with vessels to plate and have been known to use mirrors, palm leaves or really anything fun and out of the box to begin the plating process.”
Left: Lemon chiffon cheesecake with raspberry caviar and mint. Right: Boozy milk and orange biscotti cookies.
Are there any wedding trends from the past few years that you believe are going to stick around for a while?
“We have seen an uptick in action stations as couples are moving toward less formal receptions. During the pandemic, we also reimagined something that we are known for – grazing tables – and have started offering individual charcuterie boards during cocktail hour!”
What’s the most inventive or innovative dish or plating you’ve created for a wedding?
“One of the most fun things that we had a chance to plate was a deconstructed banana pudding. We also love playing with vessels to plate and have been known to use mirrors, palm leaves or really anything fun and out of the box to begin the plating process.”
Rocky Top Catering
Left: Green chili-braised pork shoulder with salsa verde, corn salad and goat cheese grits. Right: Gnocchi with butternut puree, arugula salad, roasted cremini mushrooms, and fennel peppercorn cream topped with shaved parmesan.
This “above and beyond” team is adored by vendors and couples alike. They have more than 20 years of experience as a North Carolina wedding caterer based in the Raleigh area. They believe that delicious, creative cuisine and exceptional service are essential ingredients in making an occasion memorable. Bottom line is that Rocky Top Catering presents restaurant-quality wedding food at an affordable price.
Left: Flat iron Romano-crusted sea bass and potatoes. Middle: Roasted beet crostini with whipped goat cheese and grape jus, strawberry-basil tartlet with white balsamic syrup, buckwheat blini and salmon lox salad with dill cream cheese. Right: Vegan seared sweet potato with black bean puree, pico de gallo, lime broccoli and walnuts.
What can couples expect from a tasting and who should they bring?
“Once we get a client’s proposal perfect, both budget- and selection-wise, we offer a private tasting for the couple to sample the menu that has been selected. This is a great way for us to get to know everyone better and really get a feel for the priorities on your special day. We will make dietary notes and tweak items to suit taste through this process. If the couple has parents helping to fund the reception, they’re invited, too.”
Left: Pecan, chocolate, blueberry, sour cherry and apple pies and tarts. Right: Banana pudding shooters, almond ombre cake, chocolate ganache macarons and red velvet cake pops.
Left: Fried Raleigh hot chicken sandwich (fried chicken breast, honey-Sriracha sauce, pickle and-collard slaw). Right: Hand-sliced ahi tuna board with pink peppercorn and coriander-seared tuna, house pickles, edamame salad, wasabi and pickled ginger
What sets your team apart within the catering industry?
“The first-rate client experience is what separates us. During the planning process, it can be rather stressful with a lot of decisions to be made, but with an experienced team on our side helping to guide clients, we feel we are taking their best interests to heart. Among our directors, sales team, chefs and operations manager, we have well over 20 individuals who are available as manager support and assistance on event day. With our experienced onsite team, plus a wealth of talent from the salaried positions, we have the necessary infrastructure to handle all events and the curveballs that may be thrown day-of.
What are your suggestions for the best dining styles for various reception sizes?
“Stations offer the best bang for your buck. Our goal, no matter the service style, is for guests to receive their food within 25 minutes. This is true whether it’s plated, buffet or stations. The beautiful aspect of stations, when done correctly, is that guests can pick and choose where to go. If station A has a line, head to station B and grab a plate. This gives you a chance to enjoy and then you can visit station A or C. When done in this manner, all guests, no matter the guest count, should have their first plate within 10 to 12 minutes. With the increase in goods and services, stations have now become one of the more favorable styles from a pricing perspective. We offer dynamic tiered pricing based on guest count and the number of stations.”
Catering Works
This female-owned-and-operated family business has been a Raleigh mainstay for more than 30 years. Sisters and owners Jill Santa-Lucia and Lorin Laxton have a passion for the art of entertainment. Catering Works offers more than just food: They have a wedding dessert team called Pastry Works and a floral division called Bloom Works. Catering Works has racket up many positive testimonials from its ability to serve events both on- and off-site. The company’s green initiative has resulted in implementing the use of compostable utensils, composting food scraps and partnering with local organizations to donate leftover prepared meals.
Left: Asian tuna with marinated vegetables. Middle: Tomato salad with chèvre, green goddess and balsamic pearls. Right: North Carolina catfish with collards, okra and field peas.
What sets your team apart within the local catering industry?
“The Catering Works chef and owners are dedicated to superior quality with food and service. Our core team is long-standing and dedicated to making sure every event goes off without a hitch while serving delicious food.”
How can you upscale traditional, casual Southern faves such as barbecue?
“We focus on creating a twist on the classic. With our barbecue station, we feature smoked turkey, barbecue and brisket with a plethora of house-made barbecue sauces and sides. Chef Rich Carter likes to call himself the Bubba Gump of barbecue sauce.”
What’s your signature dish?
“Creative stuffed chicken combinations like spinach with chevre (goat cheese) and roasted peppers in an artichoke cream sauce.”
Left: Duck with red plum chutney, polenta cake and ratatouille. Right: Sweet corn pudding with a pea and shiitake saute topped with pea tendril salad and Parmesan.
Beau Catering
Lauren Erickson Bennett, Katie Hopkins and office manager Carmack Kelley present dishes including mini cupcakes, mini Southern tomato pies, a charcuterie plate, tomahawk pork chops with honey roasted apples, chicken-fried cheesesteak sliders and shrimp-and-grits bites
Hillsborough-based Beau Catering has a reputation throughout the state as a top North Carolina wedding caterer offering exquisite food and exceptional service. Its namesake and executive chef, Beau Bennett, passed away in 2021, leaving behind a passionate team of professionals who are dedicated to carrying on his legacy. Known for classic Southern with fresh Californian influence, Beau Catering believes in simple recipes that allow the ingredients to shine. From crispy fried chicken dipped in rosemary gravy to pistachio-encrusted eggplant, everything on Beau Catering’s menu tastes like heaven and is made with love.
Left: Seared North Carolina scallops. Middle: Melon gazpacho with Gouda grilled cheese. Right: Cornbread BLT crostini.
What sets your team apart within the local catering industry?
“Our focus on local food and personalized service.”
Left: Tomahawk pork chops with honey roasted apples. Middle: Chicken-fried cheesesteak sliders. Right: Mini honeycomb cupcakes with cereal milk frosting.
What are your suggestions for serving styles when it comes to receptions?
“For small- to medium-sized weddings, we suggest a plated or family-style meal. For larger weddings, we recommend a buffet.”
What is your signature dish?
“Beau’s famous crab cakes.”
HL Catering
Left: Bacon wall featuring coffee and cocoa bacon, candied bacon and maple-chipotle bacon. Right: Double-decker grilled cheese.
With a reputation for fresh food and cutting-edge presentations, HL Catering offers popular displays and interactive stations. And, we love that they’re all about custom menu building. Chef Houston Loper has executive experience at the Atlanta Fish Market in addition to his culinary school training. He utilizes his background to provide a fine dining touch and unparalleled creativity.
Top Left: Tuna salade nicoise with endive, charred beans, tomato jam, cured egg yolk, crispy potato and crunchy olives. Top right: Beet-cured salmon on
everything lavash with cucumber, dill cream cheese and caviar.
Bottom left: Chicken schnitzle, mustard cream sauce, cabbage and arugula salad. Bottom right: Bone-in carving station: crispy fingerlings, Brussels sprouts with lemon vinaigrette, horseradish sauce, red wine demi-glace, yeast rolls.
What sets your team apart within the local catering industry?
“We often are asked about what our company’s food “personality” is, and when it comes to weddings, our goal is to let the personality of the couple shine through the menu – after all, it is supposed to be all about them and not us. We spend a significant amount of time learning about our couples’ food taste and curating a unique menu for their big day.”
Above Left: Tomato ricotta cones with lemon chutney. Above Middle: Osso buco with grilled zucchini and roasted carrots. Above Right: Blood orange smoothies.
Bottom: Mini bloody Mary cocktails with shrimp in a cucumber cup.
Locals Seafood
Locals Seafood offers fresh seafood and shellfish sourced straight from the North Carolina coast. The company operates a restaurant and fish market out of the Durham Food Hall and sells seafood at several Triangle-area farmers markets. When it comes to catering, Locals’ mobile raw bar is a fantastic way to elevate your cocktail hour or reception. If you or any of your guests aren’t a fan of raw oysters, opt for an oyster roast package or custom seafood-centric menu.
What sets your team apart within the local catering industry?
“Our team consists of seafood and oyster experts. Our shuckers not only serve delicious oysters, they can also answer oyster questions and share seafood factswith guests.”
What’s the most inventive way you’ve plated for a wedding?
“Our seafood towers, complete with two or three levels of cold seafood and oysters, are a neat way to step up the elegance.”
What are your suggestions for the best dining styles for various reception sizes? “The beauty of a small wedding is that you can host a seated, full-service meal. This style of dining gives the event an upscale feel. You don’t need a huge team to pull it off either. Bartenders can double as servers and prep cooks. You can’t beat a buffet for a large wedding – guests love to come and go as they please.”
Empire Eats Catering
Left: Risotto balls from Gravy. Right: The Pit’s signature buffet: barbecue chicken, chopped barbecue, collard greens, coleslaw, mashed sweet potatoes and mac and cheese.
The company – which also owns several local restaurants – operates on the belief that great food and great hospitality are all it takes to make someone feel at home. We love that the group intentionally focuses on taste, rather than trends. If you’re looking for a wide range of cuisine options from your North Carolina wedding caterer, Empire Eats might be the one for you. Many favorite menu items from Sitti, Gravy, The Pit and The Raleigh Times Bar are offered. Empire Eats Catering provides quality service, whether you’re trying to please guests who are vegetarian, have a Southern palate or appreciate comforting Italian foods.
Left: The Pit’s collard greens, mashed sweet potato and barbecue chicken. Right: Shrimp and grits from The Raleigh Times Bar.
What sets your team apart within the local catering industry?
“Our catering team is part of our restaurant family – Gravy, The Pit, Sitti and The Raleigh Times Bar – and we want everyone to feel the same level of hospitality and comfort at their events as they do at one of our restaurants. Hospitality is the cornerstone of all that we do.”
Left: Chicken and waffles with maple-Sriracha syrup from The Morning Times. Middle: Buffet plate: Sitti salad, Gravy’s roasted vegetables, The Pit’s barbecue chicken and mac and cheese, The Raleigh Times Bar’s shrimp and grits. Right: Meatballs with gravy from Gravy.
How can you upscale traditional, casual Southern faves such as barbecue?
“You can enhance the decor and the fine china that it is served on, but in the end, if you want barbecue, you want the whole hog cooked low and slow over charcoal and wood like they have done here in North Carolina since the 1700s. No need to put lipstick on our pigs!”
What wedding food and drink customs are you happy to see return as the pandemic wanes?
Guests being allowed to plate their own food [and] choose their portion sizes and toppings at stations. It allows us to be much more creative in displays and eliminates the waste created with individual portion cups and portions not matching the guests’ desires.
Are there any wedding trends from the past few years that you believe are going to stick around for a while?
Online booking. Having been in the business for a long time, it used to be so critical to have face-to-face meetings, but during the pandemic, we learned to work through email, and many times, I was meeting my couples for the first time on their big day. Couples are more comfortable with that now, and I am not seeing a shift back to in-person meetings
Saladelia Cafe & Catering
Saladelia Cafe & Catering has been a fixture in Durham since opening its brick-and-mortar cafe in 1988. Owners Fida Ghanem and Robert Ghanem serve seasonal menus inspired by their Lebanese roots, which always include freshly baked bread and locally sourced ingredients. Saladelia’s empire has grown to several locations on the campuses of both Duke University and UNC as well as a second cafe in Durham and a catering business that offers hors d’oeuvres like mini chicken biscuits and entrees like stuffed balsamic pomegranate chicken with caramelized onions, roasted potatoes and Saladelia’s signature house-made focaccia.
Catering by Design
Cary-based Catering by Design has provided food for special events and weddings in the Triangle for more than two decades. Taking exceptional care in food preparation is integral to the business, and owner Phillip Lin and his employees strive to put couples’ desires first on their big day.
Middle: Blueberry watermelon caprese salad.
How do you elevate traditional, casual Southern faves?
“Our Southern menu with a flair incorporates more upscale menu options, including fried green tomatoes and a shrimp-and-grits action station. Deviled eggs can be kicked up with [garnishes like a] piece of bacon.”
Above: Bloody mary shrimp gazpacho.
What are your team’s signature dishes?
“Memphis “crazy” chicken, chicken marsala, penne pasta with portobello mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes with pesto cream sauce.”
What sets your team apart within the local catering industry?
“Longevity of our teams and how much we care for one another and for this business.”
PoshNosh Catering
Left: Rosemary and thyme roasted chicken with vegetable couscous and glazed carrots. Middle: Smoked deviled eggs with trout
roe and pickled red onion. Right: Endive with Brussels sprouts, apple, Parmesan cheese and spiced walnuts.
If you want to hear friends and family rave about how good your wedding food was long after the big day, hire PoshNosh Catering. Founded by Chef and Restauranteur Coleen Speaks, PoshNosh is one of North Carolina’s finest wedding caterers – plus, an outstanding gourmet takeout spot. Their delicious cuisine showcases seasonal ingredients. Each dish PoshNosh presents is as appetizing as it is attractive. Coleen’s 20-plus years of catering experience has also led to Hummingbird, a cafe and cocktail bar located next to her industrial-chic wedding and event venue, Whitaker & Atlantic, in Raleigh. Enjoy a family-style dinner, a seated, formal dinner or keep it simple with heavy and light hors d’oeuvres (food stations or served on trays) from this flavorful, full-service catering company.
What sets your team apart within the catering industry?
“PoshNosh is hyper-focused on seasonal, delicious food! Our boutique approach to catering helps create a more memorable, stylized event.”
What are your suggestions for the best serving styles?
“My favorite is family style, which allows more food varieties, creates a natural fellowship with sharing platters and is by far the most efficient
to serve. The most celebratory is stations/heavy hors d’oeuvres; this also allows for a greater variety of foods for guests and disperses people evenly throughout the room. A seated dinner can be very stiff, challenging to serve efficiently, more expensive with staffing costs and allows for the least variety in menu. The buffet is my least favorite, as this style tends to create anxiety issues in guests waiting for their turn!”
Left: Roasted beef tri-tip with crispy fingerling potatoes and chimichurri. Right: Chicken tandoori skewers with raita.
What’s your signature dish?
“If I had to mention one that’s always recurring, it would be our chickpea and tomato pani puri with cilantro chutney. So much flavor in a tiny bite!”
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