What We Offer

Everything below is cooked by the same team, in the same kitchen at Mickfield, and served by our own staff. We do not subcontract a wedding to one outfit and a corporate dinner to another, and we do not have a separate “budget” arm. It is one business doing several kinds of day.

The list is long because the days are genuinely different, not because we are trying to look bigger. A shoot lunch and a wedding breakfast share a kitchen and almost nothing else — different timing, different service, different problems. Pick the closest thing to your day and the page will tell you how that one actually works.

If you are not sure where to start

Getting married? Start with wedding catering. If it is in a marquee or a field, go straight to marquee wedding catering, because that is a different job from a venue with a kitchen.

Not a wedding? Party and event catering covers most things, and corporate covers the rest.

Only want to know what it costs and how it works? What is included and how booking works is the page for that, and the questions people actually ask is the one after it.

Weddings

• Wedding catering — the whole day, from arrival drinks to the last of the evening food. Start here if you are not sure which of the below you want
• Wedding buffet catering — buffets, sharing tables and feasting menus, run so the last table eats as well as the first
• Marquee wedding catering — a full field kitchen brought to a field with nothing in it
• Festival style weddings — street food, sharing tables and tipis rather than a seated three courses
• Our wedding menus — six menus, all cooked on site
• What’s included, and how booking works — what the price per head covers, and the order things happen in
• Questions answered — power, space, rain, staffing and how far we travel

Parties and events

• Party and event catering — your house or garden is the venue — we bring the kitchen
• Private dining at home — two chefs in your kitchen and no washing up
• Milestone birthdays — fortieth, fiftieth and sixtieth
• Christmas parties — at home, on your site, or take over our restaurant
• Funerals and wakes — arranged at short notice, with as few decisions as possible

Corporate and specialist

• Corporate events — bowl food, working lunches, summer and Christmas parties
• Directors’ lunches — a private lunch in your own boardroom
• Shoot lunches — elevenses at the drive, dinner when the guns come in
• Film, TV and crew catering — unit catering on location, with our own power and water
• Event planning consultancy — a one-off paid engagement with a planner of more than twenty years’ experience, bought once rather than on retainer
• Event management and coordination — planning, supplier timings and front of house on the day

Where we work

• Suffolk — most of the county within forty minutes
• Essex — the Stour valley, Dedham and Colchester
• Norfolk — strongest in the south and the Waveney valley
• Cambridgeshire — Newmarket, Cambridge, Ely and the fen edge
• Ipswich — and we run The Outlook at Fox’s Marina
• The Outlook at Fox’s Marina — our own waterside café, bar and restaurant

What is the same across all of it

We cook on site. Not reheated, not delivered. In a building with a kitchen we use it; in a field we bring one. That single fact decides most of what is good about the food.

Somebody is running the room. Every commission includes a coordinator or front-of-house manager on the day, at no extra cost. A kitchen without someone controlling the floor is how food arrives late — see event management and coordination.

Dietary requirements are cooked, not accommodated. Allergies are prepared separately and brought out by name; a vegan main course is a dish rather than the vegetable half of everyone else’s plate. Our kitchen handles all fourteen declared allergens and is not a nut-free or gluten-free environment, and we say so plainly rather than implying otherwise.

The same people quote, cook and serve. Whoever you speak to first is connected to whoever is in the kitchen on the day. On a small business that sounds obvious; at the scale most caterers operate, it is not.

How far we come

From Mickfield, near Stowmarket, across Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire, with Ipswich effectively on the doorstep. If you are further out than that, ask anyway — the answer depends on the date and what else we have on, and we would rather say no honestly than quote badly.

If you would like to taste the food before committing to anything, The Outlook at Fox’s Marina in Ipswich is our own restaurant and it is open to the public. Turn up unannounced on a Saturday. It will tell you more than a brochure will.