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Culinary Eye Catering and Events Reviews

Culinary Eye Catering and Events

Culinary Eye Catering and Events

San Francisco, CA
4.9 out of 5 rating, 13 Reviews
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Reviews

4.9 out of 5 rating
4.9 out of 5 rating
13 Reviews
98% recommend it
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Awards

13
  • S
    Scott Sent on 09/15/2017
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    The venue that my wife and I got married at listed Culinary Eye as one of their preferred vendors.
    We met with John and expressed to him what our vision was for the wedding, rustic chic, garden chic, casual and he put together a menu that fit our theme.

    Not only did John prepare a menu that my wife and I agreed on, he was able to work within our budget which was most important. Because our budget was on the lower side, I feel that we didn't compromise on quality.

    Once we agreed on our menu we were invited to a tasting. We had to pay for the dinner tasting but it was applied to our overall bill at the end. John and his team try and source local ingredients that are seasonal at the time of our wedding which we liked. We made minor tweaks to our menu but for the most part our menu stayed in tact.

    After a few months we're we're invited back to John's showroom to pick out our linens, stemware, and dinnerware.

    At this time John really comforted us as both my wife and I started to feel the pressures of the wedding planning. He made us feel at ease.

    The dinner tasted fabulous from what I remember. We were so busy mingling with our guests that we really didn't finish our dinner HOWEVER our guests raved about the dinner and mentioned how the food tasted so good!!!

    Even during the wedding John checked up on us from time to time. Overall I would recommend John and Culinary Eyes in a heartbeat! O would recommend them any day of the week and twice on Sunday!!
    I forgot to mention that we got married during Labor weekend which was one of the hottest days on record! So despite the triple digit temperature l, John and his team did an AMAZING job!!!

    Attached are some photos that our guests shared with us.
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    Diego Sent on 06/29/2017
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    Culinary Eye Catering catered our wedding reception cocktail and dinner. They were amazing! John Silva and his team are awesome. The food was phenomenal. The service top notch. Everything about the process from start to the actual event was great. Their food and presentation was one the things we were most excited about for our wedding and it all lived up to the excitement. We received lots of compliments about the food from our guests and you could tell it was a highlight. I very highly recommend Culinary Eye.
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    Jenna Sent on 10/20/2016
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    John and the team at Culinary Eye are truly incredible. From the first time we met with John, we instantly kicked with his laid back, mellow demeanor. He was excited to do something different with us and played into my request of adding family tradition with our menu. John is so much fun to work with! Everyone couldn't stop talking about how delicious the food was, and food was very important to us. The farmer's market salad, salmon, polenta, winter squash, braised short rib, and build your own ice cream sandwich bar was all just beyond perfection. John himself even came out to serve us dinner and we had our own tray of appetizers waiting for us after the ceremony. We felt like true celebrities! Can't recommend John and the Culinary Eye team enough, and I am already looking forward to the next event we can hire them!
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  • D
    Devin Sent on 07/01/2015
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    John Silva and his team at Culinary Eye prepared and served an amazing feast for our outdoor wedding of 150. Countless guests commented on the food being some of the best they had ever had at any catered event. John and his staff were as committed to creating something amazing as we were. Culinary Eye was responsive, professional, and an absolute joy to work with. After one meeting, John and Collins felt like friends, teammates, and partners. If you appreciate good food and are looking for a partner to work with to help prepare an unforgettable culinary experience for your guests, hire Culinary Eye immediately. My wife is a Northern California foodie. Meals are a cultural experience. Salads are works of art. Meat and fish must be perfectly prepared. Flavors must be fresh and powerful. We sought a caterer who shared these values. After one phone call with John, we knew we had found our caterer. John and Collins are passionate about their food, but were open to our suggestions and preferences. When we had an idea that just didn’t make sense, they told us, and they told us why. They were invested in creating an amazing experience for our guests, and incorporated and elaborated upon our feedback. John arrived at 10 a.m. on the wedding day for a ceremony that would not begin until 5:00. Why 10 a.m.? Because that’s who John is. John worked seamlessly with our wedding coordinator and our vendors. At the wedding, guests were served bite-sized morsels to whet their appetites for the main event. They were flavorful and beautiful. The main course was wild fresh salmon and tri-tip for 150. Perfectly done. You think polenta is boring? Not the way they do it. You want a caterer who gets there at 10 am just in case, and who holds the quartet’s umbrella because the music must go on. You want John and Culinary Eye on your team.
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    Sharon Sent on 06/15/2014
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    John was fabulous! When we first started wedding planning, I originally thought I would do my own flowers for the table decorations. As we got closer, I realized I really needed help! My wedding coordinator, Christy Daly Matthew of Allure Consulting, recommended John and we were so lucky he was available. He is very easy to work with – organized, responsive and talented! My bouquet, the bridesmaids’ bouquets, the boutonnieres, corsages, and all the flowers throughout the wedding day were absolutely beautiful. I told John my color scheme and shared a few photos but really left it to him to decide what would look best. And I’m so glad I did! Everything was beautiful and elegant.
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    Jessica Sent on 08/06/2014
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    John and his team are fantastic. Since our wedding, two of our pairs of friends have hired the Culinary Eye guys to cater their weddings, and we still hear from guests about how we had the best wedding food of all time. We agree!

    When planning, good food was our #1 requirement. We would have gotten married in a parking lot, as long as the meal was great. Fortunately, we got married somewhere stunning AND the meal was great.

    We had a family style dinner, with several seasonal salads and entrees sent out to each table for people to share. My favorite dish was the paella, which John subbed shrimp into at my request. Yum! We also had their signature ice cream bar, which friends have raved about (and which photographs really well.)

    The team also helped out with some of our event design, shepherding us through the rentals experience and helping think through what to get and how to organize the space. It was really helpful. They made the whole evening go super smoothly, even delivering leftover wine and food back to us.

    We had two catering finalists when making our final choice, and we're sure we chose right. Our other vendor option was less costly, but significantly less sophisticated. From the first time we chatted with John, we felt he understood our vision and plans and had great ideas. We wanted our wedding meal to be truly special and Culinary Eye made it so!
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    Maurice Sent on 11/18/2013
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    Absolutely awesome vendors. John and Collins created a fantastic meal and did every else along the way in our wedding experience to make the event a smash. I know that five-star reviews can tend to be a bit questionable (seriously, there had to be something a little off, right??), but in this case, I can only rave about our experience. We realize we were fairly lucky with our wedding (only one or two not-so-great business partners involved), but even so, these guys stood out from the crowd.

    Expect fantastic food, great service, and two wonderful guys at the helm of the ship. Culinary Eye: simply the best.
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    Caitlin Sent on 11/07/2012
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    John and his team were incredible. From our very first tasting to the end of the wedding, John delivered. He was attentive to our needs and was willing to work with us to create the perfect feast for us and our guests. He even gave us the courage to scrap a traditional wedding cake and go for an ice cream bar for our dessert (he made our five favorite flavors for the night from scratch!). Choosing John and his team was one of the best decisions we made in the wedding planning process, and our guests loved it. People even asked for his email address to get a recipe for the steak sauce, and he gave it to them. Beyond the food, John is just a solid, straightforward guy who is laid back and a lot of fun to work with. I wholeheartedly recommend John and his Culinary Eye team!
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    Kat Sent on 11/11/2013
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    You know that feeling you get when the event you've been planning for months (maybe even a year or two) turned out to be the most perfect day you've ever ever hoped for? Book Culinary Eye with John and Collins. That feeling will never go away. My husband and I are pretty obsessed with food. So needless to say, it was the most important part of our wedding. I could have walked down the aisle in a potato sack as long as the food was killer. And oh yes, it was. I'm Cajun, and my husband is Italian. This makes for huge flavors and an insane amount of food. John, Collins, and their staff ROCKED it! From the Tartiflette du Reblochon to the Bacon Jam Biscuits and the Little Gem salad, every ridiculously tasty plate was unique and totally us. They listened to our ideas and gave us new ones to compliment everything we wanted and so much more.

    Now let's talk about those guys and their team. Working with them was a DREAM! John and Collins were so much more than our caterers. They were our friends and our unofficial counselors. The first time we met John was at a diner in the Outer Richmond. It was full of great conversation and a delightful display of ideas. We knew we really liked this guy and we wanted to take him along for the ride. We met Collins at their office shortly after, and it was love at first bite. My husband and I don't remember the last time we shared such amazing ideas and hilarious banter with two people we'd just met.

    The day of was everything we hoped for and a hundred times more. I'll never forget John bringing us a plateful of goodies as my husband and I pranced around in the Redwood trees for a photo shoot. They also handled the SF Parks and Permits beautifully as the Department came at us with all kinds of obstacles. They had our backs the whole time, from day one. They hit every. Single. Detail. We cannot explain how much love we have for Culinary Eye. Book them. Right now. To John and Collins - thanks for making our day absolutely unbelievable.
  • User1065518 Sent on 01/11/2013
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    John, Collins, and team did an amazing job catering our wedding. If we ever have another shindig that requires catering, I'd definitely call up Culinary Eye!

    Hubbie and I worked closely with John for over a yr planning for our wedding and John was always patient and easy going despite the multiple changes and questions we had. We found him honest and hard working, never felt like he was trying to rip us off or nickel and dime us, while going the extra mile for us. John's partner, Collins, is super jovial and helpful. Since we've never planned a wedding before, John and Collins provided valuable guidance on what's worth spending money on and pushed back politely when it didn't make sense to cut corners based on their experience. These are the types of conversations that help build trust.

    Aside from being personable team, they know their stuff when it comes to cooking! When we were trying to select a catering company, we asked each of the ones we were considering to make David Chang's (momofuku) Korean braised short ribs in addition to all other dished they wanted to show case. John nailed the momofuku recipe! and he paired it with grilled heirloom peaches so that it fit our penchant for fusion cuisine and our wedding's napa seasonal theme. John's braise short ribs were flavorful (perfect balance of savory and sweetness), tender with some bite to it. He said that was because how David Chang likes it. That sealed the deal for us because it showed how diligent John is in trying to understand what his clients are looking for. It was clear he was the only caterer who really did his homework.
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    Cary Sent on 01/11/2013
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    Culinary Eye was amazing. These guys are so much fun to work with and out guests are still talking about the food!
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    M. Sent on 01/23/2013
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    Culinary Eye catered our outdoor wedding in Templeton, CA, in September. They make absolutely amazing food, but what really makes them really stand out from other caterers is the professionalism and preparedness they bring to your event. I planned an extremely complicated wedding in a non-venue location and Culinary Eye was one of the only vendors I had 100% confidence in with regards to following my elaborate plans to the detail. I got a ton of comments from our guests that this was the best wedding food they're ever had: "...and it was even hot!" - what a concept! :) John, Collins and staff are awesome!
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    Corinna Sent on 08/17/2016
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    First and foremost, please let me preface that my husband and I have very Type A personalities, and that I used to cater with an upscale company in San Francisco. With this said, couples reading this already know we expected A LOT from the catering company we were going to use for our own wedding. So let's quickly break down what was great and what soured our day.

    PROS: Nikki, our event coordinator! Her responses were always lightning fast, which made our communication and cooperation a lot smoother. And our tasting with Chef Collins went without a hitch! He even made some accommodations for us.

    CONS: Wedding setup was unorganized despite going through all the details with Nikki. Our corn hole toss was actually tossed to the side at the venue, still in the box. Staff never set it up so our guests all got to see it tossed aside. Our center piece and s'more setup was not according to vision. You can tell they tried though so points for the staff there, I guess.

    BIGGEST CON: The chicken fingers for our kids' menu was raw. Yup. RAW. My husband and Chef Collins had words, and then servers came out to retrieve all the plates. However, it was over by that time. All the kids were done with wanting to eat, so our kids only pretty much had a slice of watermelon and s'mores for dinner that night.

    Culinary Eye refunded our kids' plates but that did not entirely sit well with us. It was only by chance that we discovered the chicken was raw too, so that only made matters worse. We worked really hard to find amazing vendors and we solely chose Culinary based on previous reviews and our impression of them. Now that our wedding is done, would we use them again for future events? We don't think so. Despite how delicious every single plate was, the raw chicken incident took over the night.