Wedding catering in Tuscany: how it works and how to choose

This page used to do two things it should not have. It ranked ten caterers from one to ten, with characterisations we invented, and it published a per-person price table we could not source. Both are gone.

Catering is usually the largest single cost of a Tuscan wedding, and the decision that most often turns out to have been made for you. Here is how it actually works.

The first question is not who, but whether you get to choose

Venues fall into three groups, and which one applies decides everything downstream.

In-house. The property cooks. The kitchen is theirs, the menu is theirs, and the caterer question does not arise.

Approved list. You choose from caterers the venue works with — typically three to six names.

Open. You bring your own, sometimes for a kitchen fee.

Of the twenty-six venues listed on this site, only one describes an open arrangement: Tenuta I Bonsi makes its kitchen available either to the caterer it has worked with for twenty years or to any caterer the couple chooses. Everything else that states a model is in-house or an approved list.

So establish the model in your first email to a venue. If you have a caterer you want, it may decide the venue rather than the other way round.

What a Tuscan wedding meal usually looks like

A long seated dinner rather than a buffet, and later than couples from northern Europe expect — an aperitif in the early evening, dinner from eight or nine, several courses, and coffee well after midnight.

That shape has practical consequences. It is why children need a plan for the dinner specifically, why guests should eat lunch, and why the contracted end time matters: a dinner that starts at nine and a venue that closes at midnight is a short evening.

How to make two quotes comparable

They will not be comparable as they arrive. Normalise them first.

• IVA. Italian quotes may be inclusive or exclusive, and different suppliers do it differently. A quote "più IVA" is not the number you will pay.
• Service and staff. Sometimes inside the per-head price, sometimes a separate line, sometimes billed by hours worked.
• What is physically provided. Tables, chairs, linen, glassware, crockery, cleaning — or some of those hired separately.
• Overtime. What the rate is once the contracted hour passes.
• Minimums. A minimum spend or a minimum guest count quietly raises a small wedding's cost per head.

We do not publish price ranges for catering. No caterer listed on this site publishes one, so any range we gave you would be an estimate dressed as research — which is what the table we removed from this page was.

Tastings

Ask when, where, whether it costs extra, and whether the chef who cooks at the tasting is the one cooking on the day.

For couples planning from abroad this has to be built into a trip, which is a good reason to combine a viewing visit with a tasting and get two things out of one flight.

Wine, and corkage

In a region that makes the wine, whether you may bring your own is a real question with a real number attached. Ask both parts — whether it is permitted, and the fee per bottle — and ask the venue as well as the caterer, because the answers can differ and the venue's usually wins.

Dietary requirements

Give real numbers early rather than late. Vegetarian, vegan, coeliac and allergy requirements affect menu design and sometimes the kitchen, and a caterer told two weeks before will produce something less good than one told in March. Ask how allergens are handled on the night, not only on the menu.

What our listings tell you

Each caterer's page carries what that business publishes about itself, with the source and the date we checked it. Browse them in the catering directory, and see the venues guide for how to establish a property's catering model before you fall for it.

Why there is no ranking here

We have not eaten this food. A numbered top ten of Tuscan caterers from a site that has never attended one of their weddings is a guess with a number on it, and the previous version of this page was exactly that.