Wedding catering · Sonoma, Napa & Marin
Your wedding menu, tasted first.
A private tasting for two · $140Book a tasting
40 to 250 guestsFamily style or platedNo service chargeOne wedding a daySince 2014
I
The tasting
Before you choose us, taste us.
Most caterers ask you to sign and then show you the food. We do it the other way round. Come to our tasting room in Petaluma, sit down at a table for two, and eat your wedding.
- Ninety minutesat a table by the window, just the two of you
- Four coursestwo versions of each, so you choose by eating
- A glass with eachand Clara at the table for the last half hour
- $140 for twoand it comes off your bill when you book us
At the table
You get a card and a pencil.
Keep one of each pair, or write what you’d change. Clara reads every note, and the menu you get that week is the one you marked. Try it: pick your plates.
III
The price per guest
One price a guest. That’s the bill.
No service charge, no cake-cutting fee, no corkage, no line at the end you didn’t see coming. Move the slider to your guest count.
Your wedding, worked out
$14,880
120 guests × $124, plated, three courses
- Holds the date (25%)
- $3,720
- Your tasting, taken off
- −$140
- The rest
- two weeks before
On the day, in claret aprons
Clara, 4 cooks, 12 servers, a captain and 2 on the dish crew
In every price
- Three passed canapés at cocktail hour
- Bread and cultured butter
- Dinner and dessert
- Coffee and tea
- The chef, the cooks and the field kitchen
- Servers, a captain and the dish crew
- China, silver, glassware and linen napkins
- Setting up, and leaving the venue as we found it
Only if you want it
- Late-night bite$9 a guest
- Bartenders (you buy the wine)$45 an hour each
- Children under 12$45 a child
- Tables, chairs and a tentThrough your venue
- Sales taxAs the county sets it
IV
From the tasting to the last plate
A year of planning, one evening of plates.
The months before
- A year or so beforeThe tasting
Two of you, a table by the window in Petaluma, and your menu in four courses, two versions of each. You mark your card; Clara takes notes.
- That weekYour menu, written
The menu as you changed it, the price per guest and the day’s timeline, in your inbox. 25% holds your date; the $140 comes off.
- Three months beforeThe walk-through
Teo walks your venue with you and your planner: where the kitchen tent goes, the power, the path from the kitchen to the tables.
- Three weeks beforeThe count
The final number and the seating chart. Allergies go in by name, so the plate for your uncle with the shellfish allergy knows it’s his.
- The day beforeThe market
Clara shops the farms in Sebastopol and Petaluma, the bread is baked and the sauces are made in our kitchen.
The day
- 12:30 PM
The kitchen goes up beside your venue: ovens, a pass, cold boxes, a sink.
- 4:30 PM
Canapés passed while you have your photos taken. Yours are kept on a plate for when you’re back.
- 6:10 PM
Dinner. Every table of a course is served at once, the whole tent in under eight minutes.
- 8:00 PM
Coffee and tea while the toasts run long. The cake is cut and plated by us, no fee.
- 9:30 PM
The late-night bite, if you chose one: little grilled cheeses and tomato soup in cups.
- 11:45 PM
The last plate is washed. Leftovers boxed for you, the venue left as we found it.
V
The team on the day
Twenty people for 120 guests.
Every table of a course is set down at once, so no one at table twelve watches table one eat. That takes people, and they’re all in the price.
- The chefClara
Cooks every wedding herself. That’s why we only take one a day.
- The captainTeo or Ines
Your one person to ask on the day. Runs the timeline with your planner, so you never have to.
- The cooksOne for every 30 guests
Most have cooked with us for five summers or more.
- The serversOne for every 8 to 12
White shirts, claret aprons. They know your guests’ names and their allergies.
VI
Weddings this year
What they changed at the tasting.
Every couple changes something. Here is this year’s book, with their OK.
- AprilPriya & SamWren Hill, Glen Ellen132 guestsFour courses
A little more lemon on the halibut.
- MayGrace & DanielAshgrove Farm, Healdsburg86 guestsFamily style
My grandmother’s dumplings, as the first course.
- JuneJess & MarcoThe Cedar Mill, Sonoma214 guestsPlated
A vegetarian main nobody would want to trade.
- AugustHannah & LeoA backyard in Mill Valley48 guestsFamily style
Peach cobbler, in the cast iron, on the table.
- SeptemberMei & JordanHolloway Ranch, Petaluma168 guestsPlated
Short rib in September. It was going to rain.
- DecemberClaire & OwenThe Old Cellar, Calistoga74 guestsFour courses
Can we keep the candles from the tasting?
VII
The chef
Hi, I’m Clara.
My grandmother, Ruth Bloom, cooked for weddings in a church hall in Petaluma for thirty years. She had one rule: nobody pays for a meal they haven’t eaten.
So every couple came to her kitchen on a Saturday, sat at the table with the oilcloth and ate their wedding first. I was the one carrying the plates out. I was nine.
I cooked in restaurant kitchens in San Francisco for eleven years, then ran a winery kitchen in Healdsburg that fed three hundred at every harvest. In 2014 my husband Teo, who had run dining rooms for as long as I’d run kitchens, said it was time to cook for weddings the way Ruth did. We named it after her.
We still only take one wedding a day, I still cook every one, and you still taste it first.
Clara
- Since 2014weddings in Sonoma, Napa and Marin
- 400+weddings, every one tasted first
- One a dayso Clara cooks every one
Words from couples
5.0 from 118 couples on Google.
“We tasted the lamb one March and ate it again at our wedding a year later. Same plate, same jus, for 132 people.”
Priya & Sam132 guests · Glen Ellen“My grandmother’s dumplings were on the menu. Clara called her twice to get them right.”
Grace & Daniel86 guests · Healdsburg“The price was the price. No service charge at the end, no surprise line for cutting the cake.”
Jess & Marco214 guests · Sonoma“Teo ran the night like a watch. We didn’t answer one question about food all day.”
Mei & Jordan168 guests · Petaluma
Where
From Healdsburg to Mill Valley.
Vineyards, barns, ranches, cellars and backyards, within an hour of our kitchen in Petaluma, with no travel fee. Further than that, $4 a guest.
- Healdsburg
- Sebastopol
- Santa Rosa
- Glen Ellen
- Sonoma
- Petaluma
- Napa
- Calistoga
- Point Reyes
- Mill Valley
The tasting roomA side street in Petaluma, by appointment, Thursday to Saturday.
Questions
Before you taste.
What happens at the tasting?
About ninety minutes at our tasting room in Petaluma: your menu in four courses, two versions of each, with a glass of wine to go with them. You mark the tasting card as you eat, Clara sits down with you at the end, and you take the card home. Thursday to Saturday, lunch or early evening.
Does the $140 come off our bill?
Yes, the whole $140, when you book your wedding with us. If you don’t, you’ve had a very good lunch, and no one will chase you.
What’s in the price per guest?
Everything on the list above: canapés, bread, dinner and dessert, coffee and tea, the kitchen, the servers and the captain, china, silver, glassware, napkins and the clean-up. There is no service charge, no cake-cutting fee and no corkage. Sales tax is added.
Can you cook around allergies and diets?
Always. Allergies come in by name with your seating chart, and each of those plates is made separately and carried out by name. Vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and kosher-style are all on the tasting menu if you’d like to taste them too.
Our venue has no kitchen. Is that a problem?
Not at all; most of ours don’t. We bring a field kitchen and set it up beside the tent: ovens, a pass, cold boxes and a sink. We need one power outlet and a flat place the size of a car.
How far ahead should we book?
Saturdays from May to October usually go ten to fourteen months ahead. Winter, Fridays and Sundays are easier, often three to six months. Book the tasting first; the date is held once you’ve tasted and said yes.
Do you do smaller weddings?
Forty guests is our smallest. Under forty, we’re happy to suggest a private chef we trust.
Book a tasting
A table for two. $140.
Pick a day and a time at our tasting room in Petaluma. Tell us your season and roughly how many guests, and Clara writes your tasting menu from there.
The $140 comes off your bill when you book your wedding with us. Bring your parents for $260.
- 1Service
- 2Day and time
- 3Details
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