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Weddings

About

UC San Diego Catering is a full-service catering and event planning company dedicated to providing you with exquisite cuisine and fantastic customer service. We offer a variety of menus and design options, for everything from box lunches to full-service plated dinners. Click the appropriate link below to reach the area of Catering that can serve you best. However you choose to do it, you'll be able to relax and enjoy as our creative professionals make your next event a smashing success.

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Frequently asked questions

What is the average catering price per person for plated service?

$40

What is the average catering price per person for buffet service?

$38

What is the average catering price per person for stations?

$36

What is the average catering price per person for hors d'oeuvres?

$15

Which of the following are included in the cost of your full service wedding catering?

Delivery
Set Up
Clean Up
Cake Cutting
Cocktail Reception
Server(s)
China
Flatware

What event services do you provide?

Delivery
Set Up
Clean Up

What catering services do you provide?

Buffet
Cake Cutting
Hors d'oeuvres
Plated
Server(s)
Stations
Tastings

What types of cuisine do you cater?

American
Italian
Latin American
Local
Mediterranean
Mexican
Middle Eastern
Southern

What dietary needs can you accommodate?

Gluten Free
Lactose Free
Kosher
Nut Free
Organic
Vegan
Vegetarian

Which of the following items can you provide?

China

Reviews of UC San Diego Catering

R
Rebecca Sent on 11/21/2022
5 out of 5 rating

Delicious Food

Amazing. Just amazing. Our guests all-night we're raving about the food, I cannot thank Stefan and Zak enough for their help. Amazing chefs and amazing team.
M
Miriam Sent on 10/24/2016
5 out of 5 rating
All star team! Julie Meola, and Madison Wells made this experience off the charts incredible. Doug Martin who's head of catering made sure I got what I wanted and checked in multiple times. Many menu options are plentiful, quality, and healthy.
Being a Dietitian I know quality food, and this company uses impeccable ingredients that taste amazing and with environmental consciousness. Everybody at my wedding was RAVING about the food and it was a pescatarian only menu.
LOVE these people!

L
Laura Sent on 08/19/2008
4.7 out of 5 rating
UCSD Catering was great - they worked with our specifications, created new dishes for us, were inexpensive and everyone LOVED the food. Great choice!
M
Matt Sent on 06/04/2015
4.5 out of 5 rating
The Great: the food! Innovative dishes using local ingredients beautifully presented. An unsolicited comment from one of our guests: the food was DELICIOUS!!! Wow, UCSD! What a splendid location and I honestly can't remember better wedding food in my life!! I went to get seconds, it was so good!! And the appetizer bread was delicious too!! I loved how we could put our own toppings! And my fiance, being vegan, was able to get full too. (He actually took too much and couldn't finish!)...Last wedding we went to he could only eat rice and he was so hungry after it was over!

The Good: the price was very reasonable and a great value for the quality. It was difficult to optimize our menu because we weren't given itemized pricing until very near the end, but there were plenty of options to fit our budget.

The Less-Good: Julie Meola is very enthusiastic but her email communication sometimes lacked organization and clarity - we would often email with questions and receive a response several days later that only partially answered a few of the questions. That said, she's GREAT in person so if you're a local we recommend doing as much of the planning in person as you can (we were planning from the east coast).

We'd absolutely recommend them for any event in the future!
K
Kristen Sent on 04/28/2009
4 out of 5 rating
We were forced to use this vendor due to the reception site we booked. Fortunately, the food is amazing! I feel we got a good value - good food - reasonable price. You automatically get a wedding coordinator by using their catering service. Our coordinator, Julie, was very nice, professional, and gave us a lot of great ideas. The main difficulty we had with her was things changing at the last minute. About 4 months before our wedding - we had a FINAL meeting to do a tasting and finalize the quote, etc. We thought we had it all figured out, but about 5 days before the wedding, there were suddenly lots of changes. She did hook us up with discounted chiavari chairs, which was awesome, but there were some costs ($300 in extra linens) that she "forgot" to put on the quote. It ended up working out okay, but I hated having to be firm with a woman that I had come to love and trust so much. I would email her very specific changes, and then all of the sudden something else, which we had not even discussed would be changed. I couldn't tell if she was making lots of typos, or if she was trying to pull the wool over my eyes. In the end, I still reviewed this vendor very positively, but I would caution you to be very careful and on top of your quotes so you don't get hit up with "changes" like we did at the last minute - which was VERY stressful.
U
User2266500 Sent on 08/11/2015
3.8 out of 5 rating
We had to go with UCSD catering because of our venue.
Overall, the food was good and the service was great. I was also extremely happy with how smoothly everything went the day of.

My main issue was with the billing and lack of communication within UCSD catering as well as between UCSD catering and our venue, the great hall.

There were also a lot of issue with billing.
Before the event, when we were putting down a deposit, we told UCSD catering that we wanted to put down $5,000. Because our coordinator couldn't take the payments, someone else from UCSD catering called us to take payment but only charged us a few hundred. A week later, we were charged another $5,000 without any notification.

When we wrote to the manager, we did not receive an e-mail response back. Our coordinator was apologetic and threw in a free upgrade to china plates, but this was still frustrating.

After the event, we were told that we would be charged for 8 extra people. When I told them this was incorrect, they then said we would be charged for 5 extra people. I told them that this was still incorrect because we did not have any extra people, they decided to charge us for 2 extra people. Because we didn't want to keep going back and forth, we decided just to pay the bill. The prices that they were charging also kept fluctuating which was frustrating.
We're all about trust. Our community relies on honest reviews to help you make those big decisions with ease.

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UC San Diego Catering frequently asked questions

At UC San Diego Catering, the cost of the full wedding catering service includes:
  • Delivery
  • Set Up
  • Clean Up
  • Cake Cutting
  • Cocktail Reception
  • Server(s)
  • China
  • Flatware
UC San Diego Catering offers the following event services for weddings:
  • Delivery
  • Set Up
  • Clean Up
UC San Diego Catering offers the following catering services for weddings:
  • Buffet
  • Cake Cutting
  • Hors d'oeuvres
  • Plated
  • Server(s)
  • Stations
  • Tastings
At UC San Diego Catering, you can find the following types of cuisine:
  • American
  • Italian
  • Latin American
  • Local
  • Mediterranean
  • Mexican
  • Middle Eastern
  • Southern
At UC San Diego Catering, the following dietary needs can be accomodated:
  • Gluten Free
  • Lactose Free
  • Kosher
  • Nut Free
  • Organic
  • Vegan
  • Vegetarian
To cater to all tastes, UC San Diego Catering offers the following food and beverage items:
  • China
UC San Diego Catering is recommended by 90% of couples who have used their services. Their overall rating is 4.5 out of 5 with the following breakdown: 4.8 in value, 4.7 in flexibility, 4.4 in quality of service, 4.4 in average response time and 4.2 in professionalism.
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