High Hopes- Disappointing Experience
Hi everyone,
I am only sharing this after not having received a reply from the vendor in over 2 weeks. We had booked with Toque Catering 2 years ago prior to the pandemic, on account of the amazing reviews. Our experience was not as we had hoped, given the reviews we had seen at the time of booking. After reading some recent reviews from others on Google, I wanted to caution other couples from booking without being fully informed.
Please see the contents of the letter below- I am not wanting to share anything on here that has not been communicated to the company directly.
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I am writing this letter to express our disappointment with some aspects of the meal for our wedding date Nov. 12, 2022. After reading many excellent reviews of Toque Catering, we had high hopes of a fantastic meal for our guests.
I would like to start off by complementing your service staff, as they were kind, attentive, and everything appeared to go smoothly with service. They were both excellent.
One of our primary concerns was the portion sizing for our guests. At the head table, we had more than enough food. We were served the full portions of food for a table of 8. Our concern was for our guests. Our hopes were that guests could choose how much to take “family style”, rather than estimate how much they would need to take to make sure everyone one got some. With most tables of 8, at least 2 tables only had 7 chicken thighs. This was unfortunate, as the fried chicken was excellent and I wish all of our guests could have tried it. Given that the contract stated that a 10% overage would be prepared to make sure that there was enough food, and that this was not “leftovers” to take home, it was disappointing to have such small portions served to our guests. Given that 3 guests were absent, there should have been plenty of food to go around.
Our other concerns are regarding a few of the food items, not reflecting what we had discussed.
Perhaps this was just at our table, but we noticed that neither of our appetizers had the included sauces (shallot marmalade & mushroom ketchup). Perhaps they just got missed on ours before they came out. I found that my duck was tough and it could have really used a sauce.There was a least one table that only got one of the appetizers offered to them, which was unacceptable.
The first course was intended to be a Broccoli, Kale, Apple & Cranberry Slaw, with Creamy Lemon and Toasted Fennel Dressing, with pumpkin seeds. The salad served, was not a slaw, but a tossed green salad in a simple oil dressing. We had our menus printed in advance, and if the dishes were to be changed, it would have been helpful to know this in to avoid any confusion/ allow us to reprint our menus accordingly.
Although the flank steak was a bit tough to chew, the sauce on it was excellent, again we wished there was more to go around.
In our proposal, there were a few charges, I wanted to confirm still applied.
We were quoted the rate for having 2 chefs on site- Were there indeed 2 chefs present? Unfortunately, I was only able to see Chef Nick, and we didn’t get to connect.
Also, there was a charge for a BBQ rental. It did not appear that there were any items barbequed on site. Perhaps this changed because of the winter?
Given the fact that we were charged the 18% automatic gratuity (which we expected), and the 10% rebooking fee (Due to Covid which was entirely out of our control- original date of July 3rd, 2021), we were left underwhelmed with the quality of the food that was served to our guests.
Please let me emphasize again, how wonderful your front of house service staff were. And I appreciate the time you took to make sure that the items we selected were made to accommodate those with gluten/nut allergies. Unfortunately, at this time, we are feeling as though we are not able to recommend Toque to those we know looking for event food service.
Thank you for considering our feedback.