We chose Eatertainment to host and cater our wedding at The One Eighty, a restaurant on the 51st floor of the Manulife Centre in downtown Toronto which they own. It was a relatively small affair with about 50 guests, but what made it a little more complicated was that we were coming from out of town and really had to rely on Nicola (the Events Manager and our point of contact) and her team to handle a lot of the details for us. We were also on a fairly tight budget, and we felt that Nicola and the team really went out of their way to help us control costs and meet our budget, and truly went above and beyond for us even so.
They absolutely blew us away. It started with reaching out when we were scouting venues several months prior. Nicola met with us at The One Eighty during the restaurant's off-hours and walked us through the venue and the process and set us up with a tasting at their off-site kitchen/office location, where the team treated us to a tour of their kitchen (a fun detail!) and pampered us with options for our canapes and the courses. We had tried 3-4 other caterers, and they were all excellent, but every single item we tried from Eatertainment was phenominal. Of everything we tried, we chose to serve 3 warm and 3 cool canapes, my favourite being the Beet Fritters (very unique) and my wife's favourite being the Indian Cauliflower Poppers. Although it was close for the salads, we selected the Growing Garden salad because it was very beautifully presented- simple and elegant- and for mains we both agreed that the Feta and Spinach Stuffed Chicken main was the BEST. It's a fairly simple sounding main, but it was truly amazing- juicy, plump, very flavourful. We eschewed some of the fancier options because it was so good! We also selected the Prima Verde as our vegetarian option since we had several vegetarians attending, and it definitely held its own. Eatertainment was even able to accommodate veganifying it for one of our guests without a fuss. We chose the Moulten Chocolate Lava Cake for dessert as well (very decadent!) When we asked about options for wedding cakes, Eatertainment themselves didn't make them in-house- however, Nicola had a connection with a bakery that was able to make us our cake for a good price. She handled all the details for us.
Same thing for the florist and rentals- we were able to send a few inspiration photos and the team worked their sources and came up with options for us, all of really impressive quality and very mindful of expenses.
The team even went out and picked up sparklers for us at the dollar store!
All of these details were extremely helpful to us since we were coordinating everything remotely.
The bar options were very flexible. We chose to go with an open bar and were able to choose the selection of beer, wine, and rail drinks from a good breadth of options. Our contract had a minimum bar spend, but it was backstopped- we'd need to specifically authorize overages before they happened- which was comforting. Their pricing was very fair and we actually didn't hit overage territory on the wedding night. :)
Eatertainment's initial bid was higher than most of the other venues and caterers we were looking at, but we went with them because they promised so much more than just a space and some food. They took care of all these details, plus little easy to forget things like name cards, menus, sound system, glassware/silverware, helping us prepare last minute items, etc. Looking back on it after the fact, they actually saved us quite a bit, as these nickle-and-dime items really would have added up at some of the other options we were looking at.
The venue was amazing as well- the atmosphere and ambiance was very modern and the scenic view of downtown Toronto by night was an amazing backdrop for the wedding and really impressed the guests.
We didn't experience one single problem during the wedding. The staff were all attentive. Glasses were full, food came out quickly and perfectly. The chef even came out to check on things at one point! I ran out of review space. <3
