Svetlana Catering & Events

A two word review from a guest at a very important event recently held at my company’s office: «Righteous grub.» What more needs be said?

Svetlana is one of the reasons I like my job. They cater the lunches regularly where I work, and it’s always delicious. The other day I had something so good, it reminded me of some of the best food I had on a recent trip to Belgium and France :)
So I decided it was time to write a review.
Fresh ingredients, excellent quality, inventive recipes, seasonal produce. A wide repertoire — every regional cuisine you can name, and lots of surprising and tasty combinations you didn’t know were delicious. Fantastic with special diets — part of their wide repertoire is that they have variants for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-​free, dairy-​free, nut-​free, you name it.
Thanks for all the great food!

If you don’t want to read a long review, then let me sum this up for you: Svetlana Catering is the best caterer in the Bay Area if you ask me & I generally have high standards that some may think are «too high». I plan events for a living and let’s just say Svetlana Catering is the only caterer that has made it year after year. Her staff, service, and food are all outstanding and consistent, while never boring.
I’ll try to break this up into organized thoughts:
FOOD
Her food is excellent and she knows how to cater. What I mean is, she won’t attempt to serve the same menu to 200 people as she would to 10 people. She is very careful and thoughtful about how things will translate in terms of pre-​prep to final prep on site, how well she’ll be able to cook things with the tools/​appliances provided (aka full kitchen vs. park bbq), and will be very honest with you about her recommendations. She has cooked everything from a traditional American Thanksgiving to Japanese to Peruvian for me. I have given up on trying to figure out how she does it all so well. Typically, if you’re at a restaurant and there’s a huge menu it’s a red flag. You shouldn’t expect a restaurant to serve that many different items and do them all well. However, Polina some how disproves this theory. And to top it off, she makes amazing desserts. Whaat?! Yes. Bread pudding, chocolate caramel brownies, cookies, pies, and I forget what else because I always end her meals in a happy sugar high daze.
MENUS
Polina knows how to develop a menu. What do you mean? Maybe it’s because I come from a giant Midwestern family who loves to eat but this has always seemed very simple to me but apparently not always to others. A menu or meal should always consist of a salad, a main protein, a second protein option, a solid vegetarian entrée option (don’t call that broccoli side my «vegetarian entrée»), at least 2 – 3 sides, some of which are vegetarian, bread (um, duh!), and a dessert to finish. This way, even if there are things people don’t like, there are still plenty of options for everyone. Give the people options and make sure no one starves. Polina and I have always been on the same page with this. If you want to know more about specific menu options, talk to Polina. Sky’s the limit. You tell her what you want, she’ll make it happen.
STAFF & OPERATIONS
From what I’ve gathered over the years, I think Polina runs a tight ship. Her staff are on time, hardworking, considerate, well-​mannered, and happy to be there. She has also always requested any and all feedback, in order to continuously improve her operations. Simple– they get the job done the way it should be, always.
EVENTS I’VE DONE WITH HER
BBQ in Golden Gate Park– Polina and her staff did a BBQ cookout for our group and everything was delicious. It was a casual, simple BBQ– we didn’t want anything fancy and she delivered the perfect All-​American bbq with all the fixins. It was like a fun, family picnic except we didn’t actually have to do anything. It was great.
Corporate Lunches– we get these from her weekly, for the past 4 years, plus events, so I’ll let you calculate how many of Svetlana’s meals I have eaten… It’s our best meal of the week. Do all the other caterers really just stink that much or has Svetlana Catering just set the bar too high? Unclear. In the meantime, we wait for her lunch all week while distantly picking at our underwhelming «lunch» from those other caterers we won’t mention here.
Fancy Affairs & Weddings– one year I made the mistake of not planning far enough ahead and I wasn’t able to book Svetlana Catering for our event of the year. I managed to book one of the other «best» caterers in the city. Please don’t make me recap on how they screwed up in every way possible. From that point on, I’ve booked Svetlana Catering as soon as I have a date locked down. Or if I don’t know the date, I give her a heads up of the rough timing so she can plan accordingly. I’ve never been let down again. Most recently she did our company holiday party. Where to start on all the ways she nailed this event? How she wanted to ensure she had the absolute prettiest compostable bamboo plates for us, or her attention to detail on the exact type of chaffing dishes she was going to use, or the raw seafood bar that everyone loved? Or, how she reviewed & confirmed all of these details with me in advance because she knows I’m a bit of a control freak & she caters to the individual client? Our event went off beautifully thanks to her team. They even lit all the candles for me that I had failed to do because I was still stuck running between all the other vendors (confirmed with me first that I wanted them lit, of course!). Polina has another rare trait these days in understanding food timing & delivery. Aka you don’t bring everything out at once and you (gasp!) pay attention to your crowd. Are they still eating? Don’t bring out dessert yet then.
Hire Svetlana for your next event! Everyone will love you.

Our company gets catering from Svetlana once a week. They are my favorite caterer by far. Most every dish they’ve served has been delicious; I think the only times I haven’t enjoyed something is due to my particular tastes. You can tell that they use quality ingredients.
Not to mention that their staff is always upbeat and friendly!

Really fun working with Polina and her team. She was very respectful of our dietary restrictions and produced some amazingly yummy dishes for the paleo-​ites and vegetarians in our group. Highly recommend this team.

Polina (Svetlana Catering) is absolutely Ah Mazing! Polina caters for our company every Wednesday and has been doing so for the past two years or so. We use various catering companies, but Svetlana is our companies all time favorite. We look forward to her meals week after week!
Her food is so wonderfully diverse anything you can possibly think of she can make it! You must try her Fried Chicken, scalloped potatoes, and mac & cheese all of which are to die for! Week after week she ceases to surprise me her meals get more and more innovative. Her salads are so fun and healthy.
The only complaint I could make is that she doesn’t have her own restaurant that I could visit whenever I want! ;) Honestly every Wednesday someone new in the company always asks if Svetlana has a restaurant in the bay area to take their significant other to! The food is just that phenomenal.
She is perfect for any event size you can possibly think of. She is able to cook just about any flavor of food too, nothing can stump her.
Polina personally is so wonderful to work with and never stops! Even on her sick days she still reaches out with proposals for the next weeks meal. She is so sweet, kind, understanding, and flexible. She takes critical feedback better than anyone I’ve ever seen and comes back stronger than before. I absolutely adore her work ethic and the work she produces. She is very professional, respectful, and creative. Its truly been a privilege to work with her and be blessed with her wonderful service and staff week after week.
Here is just a sneak peak of what she can do! :)
Assorted Breads with sweet butter
Heirloom Tomato Salad with crispy greens, fresh mozzarella cheese in basil-​garlic olive oil vinaigrette
Grilled Flank Steak Roulade with Spinach & Provolone
with wild mushroom sauce
Citrus Marinated Grilled Mahi Mahi
with mango & avocado relish
Vegetarian Cauliflower Gratin
with currants, pine nuts, mint, gruyère & pecorino cheeses & light cream
Coconut Rice
Black & White Quinoa
with goat cheese, toasted hazelnuts, baby arugula & strawberries
Charred Green Beans
with whole grain mustard & tarragon
&
crispy prosciutto served on the side
My mouth waters just reading it :)

My husband and I worked with Polina to cater our 135 guest wedding in Healdsburg, CA. I first tried her miso roasted black cod at a friend’s wedding and was in love. Polina is an incredibly talented chef, versatile and a great client relation manager. For the sake of authenticity and time, I will just cut and paste the note I wrote to her right after our wedding. This should be able to share our sentiment toward working with one of the best caterers in the Bay Area. If you are looking for a caterer that #1 can cook anything with amazing talent #2 Listen to you and what you envision for your food, (esp if you are a die hard foodie) #3 Execute on all the details as her job profile as caterer is not enough, she also partly takes on event planner for your event!
***
Dear Polina,
Tony and I are heading off to France today, but we really wanted to send you a note to tell you how thankful we are that we were able to work with you to cater our wedding. You, and your team, did a phenomenal job. I felt the love in every dish (everyone raved about everything… from the corn to the short ribs to the cod — even your amazing cheese selection! Specifically, a friend of ours loved the apricot stilton). What I appreciate most about working with you was that you are not just a chef/​caterer, you are a detailed event planner as well, paying attention even to the smallest details so that everything would be perfect.
I know being in the wedding and caterer business is not an easy task, but I can tell you are extremely passionate, as well as you are gifted at executing, and literally just on top of everything. I wish you only the best with all your future weddings, events, etc. Your food, makes people joyful, and celebrations ones to remember (at least for Tony and I since we LOVE food so much ! ! !). I am glad that you get to do what you love as the world will be better for it.

I work for a blue chip law firm in the Financial District as an events coordinator. We use Svetlana Catering on a weekly basis because her food is excellent, healthy, and well-​priced.
Whenever I have multiple events for clients (we represent various Fortune 500 companies) I turn to Polina because I know she will deliver an excellent meal experience that will leave our clients satisfied and happy. This aspect of our service is crucial for the maintenance of our long-​term buisness relationships with our clients. Polina plays a big role in that, and I have come to rely heavily on her professionally to ensure the continued excellence of our service.
I whole-​heartedly recommend Svetlana catering to you for any kind of event– corporate, wedding, etc. You will not be disappointed.

If you’re looking for a caterer, blindly hire Svetlana catering! Polina the owner is awesome to work with. She’s named her business after her mom who taught her to cook. My wife and I hired her to cater our daughter’s baptism party. 75 adults and 25 kids! It was held at a local restaurant in San Francisco. she came over and did a tasting for us before we chose her. we loved the food and her professional attitude immediately. The event itself was a huge success. her wait staff passed around appetizers. They were all professionally dressed in black and white. the main courses were perfect; roast beef and salmon. the appetizers were samosas and chicken satay! chicken tenders and mac and cheese for the kids! ratatouille and baked cauliflower with rice for the veggies! so it was a mix of everything. my wife and i did not have to worry about anything during the entire event and our guests were really impressed! please contact me for a reference any time. My email is
. thx polina!

I have used Svetlana Catering for my daughter’s Bridal Shower. The shower was on Sunday and I spoke to her Wednesday night, 3 days before the event, for the first time. Polina, the owner of Svetlana Catering, helped me with the menu and matched my budget. On a party day, she was right on time, helped me with getting things plated though it was just a drop service… The food was awesome !!! Guests could not stop talking about the piroshki which was big hit on a party!
We will definitely use Svetlana Catering again! I highly recommend her if you need catering service for any occasion !

I hired Polina to cater our wedding and couldn’t have been happier with this decision. The food was amazing, fresh, and felt so healthy and light compared to typical wedding food that always seems to be heavy. We had a Hawaiian themed wedding and Polina really did her homework and was very thoughtful in preparing a menu with many options that reflected flavors and foods found in Hawaii.
Polina was very professional and really worked with us to help us stay within budget but to still have plenty of great food. On the day of, her coordinator and all the staff were very friendly and helpful.
I felt very confident in Polina’s ability to make our reception appetizers and buffet taste delicious and be presented in a beautiful way. It was nice to not have to worry about any of that on the big wedding day. I got many compliments about how amazing the food looked and tasted from many of my guests.
I would highly recommend Polina and Svetlana Catering for any of your events. You will not be disappointed.

I used Svetlana Catering for my wedding and Polina and her team did an AMAZING job!!! I could not have been happier.
The food was absolutely wonderful, the staff were so professional and helpful and I didn’t have to worry about a single thing that day; Polina and her team took care of whatever came up. Polina was VERY flexible and very conscientious and honestly just took care of things.
We had several children at our wedding and she made sure she had an appropriate menu for them. My MOH was pregnant, and her staff made sure that she had everything she needed. My friend made a cake, which turned out to be HUGE, and they took care of it without blinking an eye. We played with having a tent for overflow for the wedding (ultimately decided against it), and Polina looked into pricing for us.
B/​c we were on a pretty tight budget for our wedding, we did several things ourselves, like buy the table decorations, wedding favors, made the flower arrangements for the chapel which we brought down to the reception, etc. All we had to do was let Polina know what we wanted, drop it off the morning of, and they took everything and put it all together so that it looked nice.
On a day where there is a lot going on, I was able to just let Polina and her team take care of the reception and I didn’t have to worry about a thing — which is HUGE on your wedding day!
There aren’t enough words to express how happy I was with Polina and her team. I HIGHLY recommend Polina for any type of catering you might need!!!