Newmarket is forty minutes from us and the rest of the county is not much further. Cambridgeshire weddings are mostly barns and marquees, which is the work we are built for.

Marquees and barns

A barn has a kitchen; a field has nothing. We do both, and we bring a complete field kitchen either way — ovens, refrigeration, our own power and our own water — so a paddock on a farm outside Ely is the same job to us as a converted barn with three-phase.

See marquee wedding catering.

Where we work

Newmarket and the racing villages, Cambridge and the south of the county, Ely and the fen edge, and across towards Huntingdon.

The food

Newmarket Musk sausages are twenty miles down the road, which makes the sharing menus unusually well placed here. Red Poll beef, glazed Suffolk ham, and a proper Suffolk ploughman’s with Shipcord — East Anglian rather than generically English.

See all six wedding menus.

Before you commit

If you are coming east to look at venues, it is worth pairing the trip with lunch at The Outlook at Fox’s Marina in Ipswich. It is our own restaurant, it is open to the public, and it will tell you more about how we work than any brochure.

The drive, and what it changes

We cook at Mickfield, near Stowmarket. Newmarket is about forty minutes, Cambridge and the fen edge a little over an hour. Close enough that a recce is a morning rather than an expedition, and we will always do one before quoting on a field.

What a Cambridgeshire venue usually means for the catering

The fens. Flat, open and exposed. There is rarely anything to break the wind, which matters more for a marquee than the rain does. Ground conditions are the other question — fen soil after a wet fortnight is not somewhere to take a loaded van without asking first.

Newmarket and the racing villages. A lot of the best sites here are private houses and paddocks rather than commercial venues, which means no kitchen, no cover and no back-of-house. That is our normal rather than a complication.

Cambridge and the colleges. Where a venue has its own kitchen and its own rules, we work to them. Some colleges and historic buildings have a tied caterer or a restricted list; it is worth asking early, because it is the one thing that cannot be worked around later.

Three questions worth asking a Cambridgeshire venue

1. Is there a tied caterer or an approved list? Ask before you fall in love with the room.
2. What is the power supply, in amps, and is it three phase? “There is electricity” is not something a kitchen can be planned against.
3. What does vehicle access look like in bad weather? On fen ground that is a different answer in October from the one you get in June.

If you have a venue in mind and want a straight answer about what catering there actually involves, ask us before you sign — see marquee wedding catering or what is included and how booking works.

Menus

The six wedding menus, all cooked on site wherever the day is:

• Canapé menus
• Wedding breakfast menus
• Sharing and feasting menus
• Barbecue and summer menus
• Evening and street food menus
• Vegan and vegetarian menus

Or see all six together, and buffets and sharing tables if you are not planning a seated meal.

What we bring, and what we need from the site

For a marquee or a private house with no catering facilities we bring the kitchen: ovens, burners, hot holding, refrigeration and our own power. What we need from you is somewhere firm to stand it, vehicle access that works in the conditions on the day, and a water supply or advance warning that there is not one.

On a fen site the ground is the whole question. It is worth walking the access route with us rather than describing it, because a track that carries a car in August will not necessarily carry a loaded van in October.

The seasons here

Summer weddings in this county are often in open ground with very little shade and no shelter from wind, which affects the drinks reception more than the meal. We plan a shaded option and a wet option and decide on the morning.

Autumn and winter are the better secret. The light is extraordinary across flat country in October, venues are easier to get, and the food is more interesting — braises, game and puddings that no one wants in July. See sharing and feasting menus, which suit a winter room better than anything plated.

Beyond weddings

We also cater parties, corporate events and shoot lunches across the county, and Newmarket in particular generates a good deal of the second and third. If it is a private house rather than a venue, that is our normal rather than a complication — see private dining at home.