Trumpetvine Catering & Events

Deborah is an organized and efficient caterer, which matters a lot on your wedding day. You can’t really buy more time on your wedding day but you can make sure you hire someone who doesn’t waste it.

It has been a little over 2 years since our wedding, and my past review. It was just unfortunate that the events on our wedding day unraveled the way they did.
Trumpetvine has taken steps to make sure their events are executed more smoothly. Deborah is a thoughtful business owner, and we do not dislike her. In the end, We received many compliments from our guests on the food, and they were non the wiser of the details that my husband and I wanted which did not happen.

We hired Trumpetvine to cater our wedding at the Brazilian Room this past August. Food is important to me and finding a good caterer was a must. I was nervous about having to use one of the preferred vendors from the Brazilian Room’s list, but Deborah immediately put my mind at ease. She understood what I was looking for and gave me lots of great menu ideas. She didn’t just direct me to a set menu on her website, she listened and created a custom menu with delicious seasonal food that was perfect for us. She also did a great job of keeping our budget in mind and offering the best quality food for a reasonable price. Her prices were higher than some of the other caterers, but it was worth the extra $. This was the best food I’ve had at a wedding, and I’m not just saying that because it was my own — several guests said the same thing. My family feasted on the leftovers for days afterwards and they couldn’t stop raving about the food. Thank you Deborah!

From our very first conversation, I knew Deborah was who I wanted to work with for our wedding. She understood when I said we wanted «good, non-​pretentious food» and delivered, big time. An added bonus was when I floated the idea of a mix of Pakistani and American food (since I am Pakistani-​American and my husband is white), she loved the idea and her chef did an amazing job. 2 months later and we are still getting compliments on the food.
There were no hidden charges. She was very upfront about the pricing, provided us with an itemized quote, and even worked with us to substitute some items in order to bring the quote closer to our initial budget.
We had our wedding at the Brazilian Room. Her team was so professional and we were lucky to have them. Our wedding coordinator had never done a wedding at the Brazilian Room so it was such a huge help to have Trumpetvine– who is VERY experienced with Brazilian Room events– there to walk us through what the space usually looks like for the amount of guests we were expecting, what set ups would work best, etc.
It was such a great experience and we feel really grateful to have had Trumpetvine handle our food and beverage service.

Fantastic service, excellent food, and super classy presentation – we agree completely with all the 5-​star reviews here. We had our wedding at Berkeley’s Botanical Garden and hired Trumpetvine in part because they were a preferred vendor, in part because of the excellent reviews here on Unilocal,and then finally because Deborah had very competetive prices and really impressed us at our first tasting meeting.
Deborah is such a solid coordinator, and helped us fashion a menu that suited our half-​Indian/​half-​American guests. We were really looking for high quality, largely local, sustainable food with an Indian flair, and Trumpetvine delivered.
Deborah was very communicative with me from start to finish, very upfront about her costs. She helped me stay within our budget, and even gave me advice on how to buy drinks and alcohol for the wedding (which we provided and they served). Her staff were excellent and hard working, and really pleasant with the guests. We were thrilled with the table set up and service the evening of the wedding. The appetizers were so incredible, and the dinner was delicious, fresh, unique, and really well-​prepared. We were really happy with Trumpetvine and with Deborah’s forthrightness and professionalism. Definitely hire them for any event and you won’t be disappointed.

«BEST FOOD AT A WEDDING EVER!»
That’s what all our guests are saying weeks after our wedding at the Brazilian Room.
When we booked our wedding, our friend recommended Trumpetvine as a caterer because they had hired them in the past for a party at the B Room. We met Deborah at one of the Tuesday open houses and from the start we really enjoyed talking with her and hearing her ideas. But what sold us were the delicious curried shrimp that she brought. YUM!!! When we met with Deborah to discuss all the details, she asked us what we liked and worked with us to design a menu that worked with our tastes, what was in season, and our budget. We told her we LOVED food and we wanted our guests to enjoy a delicious lunch that we would all remember and she delivered!
On the day of the wedding, her team showed up on time and took care of everything. They worked well with our day of coordinator and everything went as planned. Since our wedding was in the morning, we had planned a «cocktail brunch» before the ceremony with crab cakes, bacon wrapped dates, muffins, fruit, and our favorite curried shrimp. They had 90 minutes from opening the venue to when the guests arrived to setup tables and chairs and prep the food and they pulled it off seamlessly.
We held our luncheon after the ceremony and it included a buffet of pork tenderloin with sides of chutney and mustard sauces, salmon and leeks wrapped in phyllo dough, spinach/​arugula salad, brussels sprouts, and roasted root vegetables. Everything was delicious but the star was the salmon! Our guests are still talking about the food three weeks after our wedding!
My husband and I highly recommend Deborah and her team and our looking forward to throwing another party just so we can have their delicious food again.

Trumpetvine catered my very good friend’s wedding, and they were awesome. The food was very good, and the staff were so friendly and awesome. They really kept the party going. Special shout out to these ladies; Denise, Andy, Reyna, and Lorie for making my friends wedding a very memorable experience. If I ever have a party and I need a caterer, I will definitely hire trumptvine

Fresh, fantastic, and exquisite. Trumpetvine was an amazing partner in creating our recent wedding. Deborah did an expert job in guiding and inspiring us through the menu, floor plans, and logistics and proved very nimble when we needed to adjust the floor plan and menu items. And the food!!! High quality, local ingredients, with the unique, warm flavors we envisoned with her and we received so many compliments on the spread from our guests. She left us in the hands of her very capable, engaging, and experienced staff who seemlessly handled the logistics of the event. We made the choice to have two staff arrive a bit early to set up tables and chairs and make the foundation for everything which I would recommend. The thing we appreciated the most is that Deborah really got the feel we wanted for the event and translated that through to her staff for the food and exceptional service.

We decided on this vendor due to the owner’s professionalism, responsiveness, and a good tasting. However, our actual event was not up to industry standards and a disappointment.
We did not receive the cheese platter or the plantains we ordered for our event. I specified to the owner that cilantro is a NO food, so I was shocked and angry to see cilantro covering every single piece of chicken when it came time for dinner. My husband, who is a chef, believes that the cilantro was thrown on last minute to try to cover the gray color of the chicken, which happens when food sits in hot boxes for too long. We paid for an on-​site chef, so I am not sure what that person was doing since the food was not prepared at our site which has a full kitchen. The food tasted nothing like our tasting. I only ate two bites of food at our wedding, which is a pity since we paid $ 6000.
The staff was in the kitchen most of the event; they were late in removing the chafer lids and they were nowhere near our dessert table when it came time to serve our guests. Two of our friends had to go to the kitchen to request forks for the dessert table so that our guests could eat, and our guests served themselves dessert, even though our contract specified differently. The staff did not set our dessert platters on the lifts properly, so our dessert fell on the floor, but once again, they were not available to assist us since they were in the kitchen. We were also charged for spoons and appetizer plates even though we didn’t have either.
One staff member, an older lady, was particularly rude to some of our guests, including my Matron of Honor/​sister and myself. She didn’t care about service; she only cared about removing the linens so she could leave and letting my sister know that she was in the way.
We met with the owner after our event to discuss our disappointment. She refunded us $ 200 for the missing cheese platter and wished she would have been there for our event; us too.

A++++++!!! Trumpetvine was on the long list of preferred vendors provided by our wedding venue, Piedmont Community Hall. From our first communications through our wedding day Deborah was professional, available and a wellspring of creative ideas. We liked that she was super familiar with our venue and could be a real resource for us throughout the planning process.
She respected and worked within our budget while letting us choose some special touches that made our party feel posh and personal (gold sequined table cloths for me, dollmas and lamb meatballs for my husband). We couldn’t decide on a second entrée and Deborah suggested a budget friendly Moroccan style chicken in pastry that turned out to be everyone’s favorite. The family style service was another budget friendly choice which turned out to be a lot of fun at the tables. She constructed a delicious and creative Mediterranean themed menu that was also sensitive to my father’s dietary restrictions.
In an effort to help future brides I will say there were a few things that I wish I would have discussed before the wedding. Mainly when I wanted to light candles and turn on headlamps provided by an offsite vendor (that one turned out to be a lot harder then we anticipated, but the servers busted their butts until they were all on, thank you guys!!!) The party staff were incredible! Super cool, attentive and accommodating of my frantic last minute Bossy Bride requests. Thank you Trumpetvine, my wedding kicked butt!

We hired Trumpet Vine for our son’s Wedding in September. Fabulous food and staff. We were very pleased with the suggestions, the willingness of the staff to work with the bride and groom on seasonal offerings, the linens and the knowledge of the venue. Very pleased!

Deborah and her crew catered our wedding September 1^st at the UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens and did an amazing job! From our initial meeting, until even now after the wedding dealing with some bev. mo issues, she’s been super super responsive, and always accessible. We loved the food at our tasting, and are so happy we hired her. Our wedding dinner was delicious! I’ve had comments from a lot of people that it’s the best wedding food they’ve ever had!
We had a great buffet spread of summer staples, like heirloom tomato and bean salads, as well as some meats and potatoes for the more traditional folks. She was also able to accomodate our crazy set up, which involved moving tables onto the same space that had been the cocktail reception area, then moving them away after dinner to turn that same patio into the dance floor. And, we had really particular requests for signature drinks that we wanted the bartender to make. A lot of logistics!
Trumpetvine’s food is great, their design sensibilities and presentation gorgeous, and overall they are super easy to work with when coordinating your wedding. Thank you for an amazing buffet dinner this month!

We used Trumpetvine for our wedding this August. They were great! The food was excellent and what prompted me to write this review is that we just defrosted leftover food from the wedding and its SO GOOD and tasty just like it was back in August! I am blown away actually how delicious it still is. That aside, I was from the camp that I wanted great food for the wedding but I know it’s not what people remember, etc. That said, I cannot tell you know many people complimented the food after we got back from our honeymoon. The flavors and colors of everything were so so beautiful and the perfect compliment to our day. Deborah and Denise and the rest of the staff couldn’t have been better. Many thanks!

I used Trumpet Vine to cater my Santa Margarita Ranch wedding and was very happy with their service. Their food was delicious, their staff was courteous, and they even sent us home with a cute little picnic basket filled with leftovers. After our wedding, I learned that we had a bit of a snafu with our keg taps– which weren’t working on either of our two kegs. Evidently, our planner said she wouldn’t address this issue, but our bartender from Trumpet Vine handled it for us, asking a friend of hers to run out and get us the proper keg taps. I really appreciated the fact that their staff went above and beyond their contractual obligations to make the day as stress-​free as possible.
I’m giving Trumpet Vine a 4 out of 5 stars only because there was a bit of confusion in the initial planning. They sent over an estimate for rental items a few months after we signed our contract, and it was pretty high. After reading the contract more carefully I noticed it said something about additional cost for rental items, but there seemed to be a lot of items that I felt should have been provided by them– like the prep tables, for instance. We couldn’t afford the estimate and had to cut some corners there, but it worked out. Just anticipate that and make sure to read the fine print. Other than that, I highly recommend them.

My fiancé and I considered hiring Trumpetvine Catering for our wedding in October 2011. Although we eventually ended up going with a different caterer whose food more closely matched our desired style, that was a tough decision to make: we really liked Trumpetvine’s food, their philosophy, and their enthusiasm towards customers.
I spoke with owner Deborah Joost on the phone several times before we met for a tasting. She was extremely helpful and excited to talk to me. We seemed to share a similar outlook on what makes a good meal: fresh, local, in-​season ingredients, harvested sustainably and prepared in an artistic and creative way.
We enjoyed the food at our tasting, including a colorful antipasto platter, an unusual kale Caesar salad, and delicious buttery orange-​cranberry cookies. Even better than the actual food were the inspired suggestions Deborah came up with as we were discussing our menu: fennel-​stuffed shiitake mushrooms as a modern twist on our chosen appetizer; latkes to honor our Eastern European heritage; pavlova as a light alternative choice to wedding cake. Deborah really seems to care about what each customer wants, and aims to create a menu that is truly meaningful to them, rather than imposing a template.
We were satisfied enough with our tasting experience that we put down a refundable deposit right then and there. I wouldn’t say the food was absolutely perfect — some of the dishes perhaps could have used more flavor or less salt (note: I’m picky in this regard :-) so I would give Trumpetvine 4 stars out of 5 for their food and an additional star for being so responsive and helpful. If we had continued working with Deborah, I’m sure she would have made adjustments to address any suggestions we had about the food.
Though we didn’t go through the full process of hiring Trumpetvine Catering, I think that if we did, we’d have been very satisfied. (We had too many good choices!) We’ll certainly consider working with them in the future.

We hired Trumpetvine for our June 2011 wedding at the Brazilian Room and we were VERY happy with them throughout every step of the process — from our initial tasting to menu planning to event execution. Deborah and Michelle created a completely customized menu just for us; they crafted new preparations and combinations that fit with our tastes and our wedding theme. This is in contrast to other caterers we met with from the Brazilian Room list that claim to give you a customized menu, but really you’re just mixing from a pre-​set list of dishes.
Deborah also advised us on wine pairings and quantities. For example, we told her we wanted to serve a particular Sauvignon Blnc that we enjoy, so she suggested a preparation for the halibut that would go nicely with Sauv Blanc. She also recommended that we select a Cabernet to go with our rib eye. And, she advised us on our floor plan. We had something we wanted to do, and she proposed an alternative that ended up being much better (as opposed to making us come up with an alternative on our own).
On the day of the wedding, everything was beautiful: the table setup and linens, the buffet, the passed hors d’oeuvres, and the bar. And, most importantly, the food was delicious and paired ever so wonderfully with our wines!
Many thanks to Deborah, Michelle, and the Trumpetvine team!

Trumpetvine catered my wedding in June (I’m in law school, so I’ve earned the delay), and they were fantastic! I was so excited to work with Deborah, and she helped me create a whole menu that fit my wedding and my budget. Everyone loved the food, and I’ve gotten so many compliments about it.
Oh, and Deborah has TONS of experience in the industry, and she was able to help me out with a lot of my timing for the wedding.

Deborah is passionate about food and it really shows through the service she provides. We hired her for our recent wedding at the Brazil Room in Berkeley and I couldn’t be happier. All of Deborah’s recommendations came from her strong belief that our wedding should be special and reflect our tastes & preferences. We got excellent feedback from even the most picky eaters & her suggestions on room layout were top notch.
The staff were attentive and warm and really made the day run smoothly including holding back some yummy appetizers for the very hungry groom. He was surprised & impressed which is a hard thing to do.

Trumpetvine did our wedding at the Brazilian Room last October (I finally have a Unilocal account to write a review). In short, they were excellent, and Deborah was very creative and thoughtful regarding our restictions of a vegetarian menu. We interviewed about 3 caterers and Deborah was by far the most creative in suggesting a vegetarian menu that did not scream «vegetarian» and was satisfying (and not noticeable) to the non-​vegetarians (including me, compliant groom). In addition to being generally organic, locally sourced, etc, the food was really, really good.
Beyond the excellent food and presentation, they were easy to work with, prompt, kind and flexible. Equally important, they had quite resonable prices.
Best touch: after marching down the aisle at the end of the ceremony, Deborah put in a surprise appearance and greeted us with glasses of wine, knowing we wouldn’t get near the food /​wine for quite a while (she was right!).

We used Trumpetvine for our wedding last month and were so very pleased. The entire process was smooth, professional and an absolute joy!
Deborah was superbly helpful during the planning phase. She was creative, flexible, and direct enough to gently offer really helpful suggestions regarding the menu and timing of events during the day. Deborah and Michelle were gracious and inventive when it came to planning a menu that was both delicious and within our modest budget.
The food at our wedding was perfect and the on-​site staff was awesome. If you are lucky enough to have Denise as the point person at your event, you will have nothing to worry about. She is on it! She knew exactly what was going on at every minute and was putting out fires before they started. Not to mention, everybody loved her. I can’t tell you how many people came up to me just to tell me how awesome she was.
Without reservation, I can happily recommend Trumpetvine for any event. They have a huge range and are so good at finding a menu that works with your vision. The flavors and presentation are superb, and their customer service is on-​point. What more can I say, they are great.