Tuscan wedding catering, cooked by one chef.

What a Tuscan wedding menu actually looks like

It starts with an aperitivo in the garden while the light is still high (crostini di fegatini, pecorino di Pienza, prosecco), and it ends four or five hours later with a cake finished tableside and a glass of vin santo. In between: an antipasto of Tuscan cured meats and focaccia baked that morning, a primo made in front of your guests, a secondo of slow-braised Chianina or sea bass al cartoccio, and the vegetables that were good that week.

The menu is built for the season, not from a catalogue. A wedding in May and a wedding in September get genuinely different food, because the produce is different and pretending otherwise is how catering ends up tasting like catering.

The pasta show

The primo is rolled in front of your guests. A board, a pin, and pici or tagliatelle made by hand while people stand around with a drink and watch: it is the part everyone films, and the part your guests still mention a year later. It costs nothing extra; it is simply how I like to serve a primo.

The same goes for the cake: tiered and assembled in front of the room rather than wheeled out finished. If you want something quieter, that is fine too: say so and we will do it your way.

How it works

• · Enquiry: tell me the date, the venue and roughly how many guests. I reply personally (whatever hour you send it, usually within a few) with availability and a realistic budget range.
• · Tasting: a private session where we build and taste the actual menu, not a sample platter.
• · The day: I cook it, and I co-ordinate with your planner, florist and venue so the food fits the timeline rather than fighting it.
• · Vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and halal are handled as a matter of course, not as an afterthought.
• · There is no fixed package and no fixed timetable. A midweek wedding, a late-night second service, an aperitivo that runs three hours because the light is good: all of it is yours to decide, and I plan the kitchen around your day rather than asking your day to fit the kitchen.