Entertaining Company

I’ve worked with Kenny on several projects and will continue to use him & Entertaining Company. He is great to work with and always makes sure that our expectations are met.

My fiancé and I set up a tasting with Kenny at the Entertaining Company, and I will admit – it was love at first sight. We had contacted several catering companies around Chicago, and none were as responsive, and charming as this experience. We had a glorious experience with our tasting. Kenny was insightful, and a strong advocate for us! Not only did he sit with us, but he listened, and ensured that our tasting menu was EXACTLY what we wanted. Our pallets were tantalized, and our company was tantalizing! Truly, an extraordinary experience. We booked on the spot, and cannot wait to share their scrumptious, satiating, attractive food. From passed hors d’oeuvres, to sweet bites – everything was artfully crafted with tastes to match. I am so excited to get married, and I even get to look forward to the food.
I’ll keep you posted. :)

This is a great company! They catered our wedding, and — a year later — people still talk about the great food!
Those hors d’oeuvres! Those entrees (beef, chicken and vegetarian were equally good — hard to tell which was the best). And outstanding service by all.
Special mention of Kenny, who advised and guided as all along and «ran the show» in a wonderful way!

They just catered my gasp…40^th birthday party. Everyone kept raving about the food. The servers were amazing. They were quick to pour a drink and even quicker to clean up any mess our guests made. I could not have been happier with the overall experience with them. Super friendly and everything you could ask for.

I wish I could give these guys more than 5 stars. We had the Entertaining Company catered our wedding a couple weeks ago and the experience we had was nothing short of amazing. We had so many guests compliment us on the food and the service saying that it was the best wedding they’ve ever been to, and we know the EC was a big reason for that. One of our guests, a highly regarded chef in Chicago, came up to me during dinner and demanded to know who our caterer was. He said the way the food was prepared, served, and tasted was near perfection.
Working with Regan was a pleasure, and she provided a lot of useful input in our preparation for our big day. The whole experience was great: the tasting, food selection, pricing, planning, etc. was pleasant. These people are pros. Highly, highly recommended.

Yesterday I went to a tasting for my future sister in laws 600 person wedding. Everyone was amazing and the food was mind blowing. Julie was beyond kind and helpful. I would 100% suggest them to anyone looking for a catering company, whether the event is small or large.

Absolutely some of the best food I’ve ever had from an off premise caterer hands down!!! If you think that’s great just wait until you experience the service they don’t miss one detail ever. Norma and Kenny are a dream team.

I LOVE Entertaining Company — Having had the fantastic opportunity to work with Wendy Pashman on some absolutely fantastic events as one of her preferred vendors, I must say there are few catering companies as amazing as this. Wendy is THE most innovative, creative, and contemporary genius who will present a culinary feast second to none. If you want something unique — call Wendy. Food is out of this World ~ and Wendy is a very fun person to work with. I always enjoy working with her and her staff. Kathie Nicolet Chicago Pianist

As a fundraiser, I have had the opportunity to work with several caterers in Chicago. In my opinion, Entertaining Company has them all beat. I love that they are always coming up with unique twists on items that really help make the food memorable. Beet red cous cous? Purple forked mashed potatoes? YES! and both beyond delish.
They are also very open to mixing things up, like pairing sides differently and combining elements of different appetizers to get you what you want.
I am honestly shocked at the few bad reviews here about staffing because I have worked with them for years and everyone from the bussers to the planners have been nothing short of super professional and helpful.

EVERYTHING was perfect for our wedding last weekend at the Cheney Mansion in Oak Park, IL. The entire process with Kenneth was beyond fun, and his entire team a pleasure. Our guests adored every morsel of food, and it was EXACTLY what we expected from our tasting. DELISH! Not only do they do the big stuff well, but the little touches too. They created signature bourbon cocktails– everyone loved! His staff was genuine. Desserts unique (bourbon bacon brownies!) and beautifully presented. Entertaining Company goes above and beyond, and we highly recommend them!

Their white hot chocolate is to die for, that comes with a chocolate covered marshmallow on a stick, pasted with a gold flake. Their pomegranate apple cider is also nice and soothing, and comes decorated with a cinnamon stick. Their pastries are wonderful, especially the strawberries that are stuffed with marscapone cheese. Their little croissants stuffed with pear is delightfully airy and soft. Also, the salty waffle potato chips topped with salmon is scrumptious — I literally shoved 2 plates down my throat.
+white hot chocolate
+pomegranate apple cider
+yummy pastries
+croissants with pear filling
+salty waffle potato chips

Norma Maloney and her team just helped us (Taylor & Co.) with a party Saturday. NORMA IS A GODDESS… And EVERY ONE OF HER TEAM was courteous, knowledgeable about the WONDERFUL tasting food, and Super pleasant to some very unpleasant guests. I commend Entertaining Company for nabbing Norma… she is unequalled and that staff was as full of variety as we ALL are in this industry. My name is Monica, by the way. I know our staff was thrilled with this team’s performance. I’d recommend them for any event requiring great food and polite and on-​top-​of-​everything service.

From the first day we met Kenny we knew that he would be a special part of our
wedding day. He took the time to get to know me and my husband and listened to
every detail that we had in mind for our wedding, far beyond the food. He was
patient with us as we made decisions about the menu, and gave us suggestions
on important aspects of our wedding reception, including flow and timing. The food
was incredible and the presentation was beautiful as well. But even more
impressive was their ability to manage a complicated event space, two floors
without an elevator, and numerous complicated room flips. We were so happy with
the food and the service that we had them cater our first party as a married couple
this holiday season. I would highly recommend Entertaining Company for their
delicious food and years of experience dealing with challenging new venues. A
special thanks to Kenny!

Highly recommended, took a chance on using them without anything but a review of the Unilocal rankings — was fantastic food.
In the past we have used Real Kitchen but they were unavailable for the holiday when we needed the catering, instead we went with Entertaining Company. Very happy it worked out this way.
The ordering process was easy, Molly was fantastic and quick with replies, the food was absolutely perfect, everyone wanted to know who the caterer was.
Fortunately we had a lot left over — amazingly, just as good the next day.

Where do I start? Mmm perhaps the tasting for my couple, it was beyond our expectations, so much so that the bride and groom agreed that their search was over, right then and there. Every thing that we tasted that day was a yes, we had to pair it down. Kenny kept the tasting fun and inventive. He helped with whimsical touches and suggestions that enhanced and elevated every bite. Every detail was discussed and fine tuned to their liking.
On the day of the wedding, EC and Kenny Woodman did an exceptional job working in a new venue (for all of us). They flawlessly executed flipping the room not once, but twice. My couple was extremely happy with the incredible food, the presentation and the service. I heard high praise from so many guests, including out of town guests who happen to be caterers! I have only exceptional words for EC and their very hardworking crew, I can’t wait to work with them again. Which lucky for me is very soon.

We were lucky enough to work with Julie at Entertaining Company on our event at Salvage One for around 350 people. We basically were having 2 parties at the same time, having a separate cocktail hour and dinner for the kids while having adult apps and stations for them. Julie worked with us (always with a big smile and giggle) to incorporate our theme and the funky venue into the choice of foods and the way we presented them. When we saw the cold weather, she was quick to agree to serve soup shooters upon arrival to warm up our guests without adding an up-​charge for an additional app choice. By the way, the tomato soup with asiago croûton and the squash soup were incredible!
Beginning with the phenomenal gourmet cheeses and crudite displays during pictures to the delicious and beautifully presented hors d’oeuvres to the abundance of delectable entrees, also set on gorgeous tables incorporating the theme into everything they did, Entertaining Company is my new favorite caterer. The staff was incredible. They bussed the tables and served guests who didn’t want to deal with the stations. A number of people commented to me on how outstanding the service was. Also, someone lost a large diamond earring during the party. The servers were looking everywhere until they found it and returned it to the owner!
They were accommodating, creative and, most importantly, the food was outstanding. It was almost 2 months ago, and guests are still commenting on the food! I am shocked to read any bad reviews. I have received such strong recommendations from others who entertain beautifully who count on EC as their «go to» for the best catering in Chicago, and now I will only be using them for all of my events to come! Definitely 5 stars. Julie and her team are the best! I can’t wait for the next party!

Working with Kenny at the Entertaining Company was a total dream!
Our event had last minute additions, our timeline running late, and a challenging space to prep in, but Kenny and his team handled it perfectly with amazing flexibility and without a single complaint!
Kenny and his team are true professionals and the menu was amazing. We had several different food stations featuring food from around the world and each bite was tastier than the last!
His servers and bar staff were quick and efficient and worked the room seamlessly.
I highly recommend Kenny and Entertaining Company for your next party or event! A++

I didn’t go into my trial expecting a lot out of EC, but man, was the food great. We paid a pretty penny (about $ 38K total for 210 guests — but we had a long cocktail hour, midnight bites, a water /​snacks bar during our ceremony…), but people raved about the food. To me, it was worth it. They were great to work with and I would definitely recommend them to my friends.

My husband and I had a FABULOUS experience with Entertaining Company for our May 2011 wedding at Café Brauer. I was a little worried before hand, from reading some negative reviews on Unilocal — but we had a wonderful experience. We worked with Molly, and she literally took care of everything. I had some miscommunication with our baker, and she took care of the situation for me. Initially, we had narrowed down our options to 3 caterers and Entertaining Company blew the other two caterers out of the water with their great service and amazing food.
Also — one of the DJs I had a consultation with told me that no one will remember the food, but everyone will remember the music. That is not true — with Entertaining Co, everyone is STILL talking about how great the food was at our wedding 6 months ago.

Like Mike R., I was very disappointed with my experience with Entertaining Company. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a $ 1000 refund, we got a big fat bunch of useless apologies.
We went with E.C. because like Mike, they were really flexible, the food was good and it was a little outside of the box. I’m pretty creative but I’ve never planned a party this big, let alone a wedding so I was looking for some guidance to make it amazing. We dealt with Rachel the whole time and she was really good about responding through emails. About halfway through the planning process I realized that a lot of the appointments we made were not being written down or something because we would have scheduled our tasting and then a couple weeks later I would get an email asking when we wanted to do the tasting? How about on the date we agreed on last month?
That was when I started becoming a little worried because we were at essentially a warehouse for our wedding so there were a lot of moving parts and I couldn’t physically be there to coordinate and my trust in E.C. was waning. On the day of, there was some miscommunication with the linens and tables, who was supposed to do what and at what time, etc. We had very generous family members coming to help decorate and when they got there, there were no linens on the tables to start the process.
Cut to the reception, everything was set up on time and it looked great. We chose two stations, a pasta station and a savory bakery. I guess we must have given our guests too much credit but they didn’t realize the savory bakery was actual entrees, not additional appetizers. To their credit however, the meatloaf cupcakes, looked nothing like cupcakes. There was barely a drop of the mashed potato «frosting» so they looked like weird meatballs. Needless the say the pasta station was overly popular. And the one thing we stressed was that we were on a timeline and we did NOT want lines. 2 hours later, we still had lines and then they ran out of pasta. Also, none of the vendors got the meals I paid for them to get. Apparently they were supposed to go hunt them down.
I wrote a letter after the fact once I had calmed down a little and got a very apologetic Rachel on the phone. She explained away some of the problems but for the most part, they ran out of food and there were long lines. The explanation for that was «we haven’t figured out a good way to do that.» But that was never mentioned ahead of time.
We spent a good deal of money on the caterer and the response I got from the owner 6 weeks after I sent my letter… we’ll give you «special pricing» on a future event you have with us.
Sorry, I think I’ll pass.