If you're having your wedding at the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanical Garden, your catering choice is already made. Don't despair that you can't select an outside caterer, though - the Peacock Cafe recently catered our wedding and it was FABULOUS. From the venue (beautiful with a view of the gardens, bistro lights and peacocks roosting in the trees and rooftops of the cafe at sundown) to the food, Nicole Olivas and the team at the Peacock Cafe were a joy.
My husband is Korean American and his family was firm that we needed to offer Korean dishes for our Korean guests - Nicole didn't even blink! We gave her a few recipes and by the time of our tasting it was like she'd been making it for years. At the reception (I was told) our guests were going back for seconds and filling their plates high.
Further, the entire team at the Peacock was tremendously helpful in our semi-DIY wedding. We had pre-made arrangements in mason jars and, just to make them look a little better, the team at the Peacock trimmed the stems for a more perfect fit. We brought paper lanterns and they hung them for us on the bistro lights. And they were always available and welcoming to have us drop by for a visit.
Plus, you can't beat the venue rental cost (a mere $300 if I remember right). The majority of the cost was in catering and service (which we did buffet style for about 75 guests, so we had 4 servers, 1 security guard and a catering manager). Nicole was super flexible in helping us design a menu to fit our tastes AND budget.
If there was one thing I'd change, I'd get Nicole a secretarial assistant - she not only manages all of the special event catering but the daily work of the cafe, too. She could take a little while to respond to some of our questions but she always did respond and was incredibly helpful (even reviewing our rental order to ensure we didn't over or under rent).
Overall - A+!
