Silva Service Catering

We have minimum charges for our various menus/catering packages.  Depending upon your selections the minimum charge will be somewhere between 20 and 40 guests.  Please see the catering menus for individual minimums. Some of our packages are designed to cater to a certain amount of people mainly because of the quantity of food or specific items within the package. It generally works out cheaper to order these “set” packages, but we can certainly make special orders to suit your individual needs. Just ask at the time of ordering so we can assist you.

We have used our years of experience to calculate food quantities for all menu items, and to work out the optimum amount of variety to provide to best service for you and your guests.  Our menus are designed so that there will be plenty of choices and plenty of food for everyone, while minimising wastage to save you money.  Our spit roasts are provided with a minimum of 300gm or roast per person (depending upon the size cuts available this can be up to 400gm), approx. 500gm of salads/sides, bread roll and 1.5 roast potatoes.  When you take into account all the extras such as gravy, butter, condiments, etc that’s over 1kg of food for each person – which is heaps of food!  In a normal mixed crowd of people this will be ample to allow guests with larger appetites to return for seconds or thirds, and also enough to ensure that individual menu items don’t run out for the 1st round of service, and generally enough to allow for left overs.

Please see above regarding food quantities.  We do not offer an all-you-can-eat-buffet, our menus are designed to provide a varied and substantial hearty meal for every person.  We can’t predict every scenario of what might occur at your function, but assuming all your guests arrive on time and that some ‘over anxious’ guests do not come back for seconds/thirds before other guests are served for the first time then it is extremely unlikely that even one dish will run out.  If you have a function where different meal sittings are needed (such as shift workers at a factory event), or where you expect some guests to arrive late, then please advise us before your function so we can discuss options to ensure this does not occur and also options to ensure hot food stays hot and safe for service for extra service times.

With vegetarians you have a few options depending upon how many of them you have.  The first and simplest choice is that you can simply choose your salad/side dish selections with the vegetarians in mind and choose the heartier varieties such as our vegetarian biryani rice dish.  Secondly we can provide vegetarian lasagne (that is really popular), however, when we place an extra dish on the buffet everybody wants some so you really need to cater that way – a catering tray of lasagne would normally suit around 30 guests as an extra. Please note that this does not mean there are 30 full serves, but in our experience 1 tray per 30 guests normally suits. We always recommend that you use your own judgement about your friends/family/colleagues and their appetites when ordering. Please contact us for current pricing on extra dishes such as this.  If you have concerns about menu items being gluten free you will find most of our menu is very gluten-free-friendly…  All roast marinades/spices are gluten free and all of the salad dressings we use are also gluten free.  The only things your gluten intolerant guests will need to avoid are the bread rolls, the gravy, and the pasta salad if you select that – these menu items should be very obvious to the guests concerned who should know to avoid them.

The answer is yes and no..  As a licenced commercial food catering business we are bound by very strict conditions regarding food temperatures, storage, service, and supply.  Our spit roast catering service is designed especially to give you and your guests the best buffet style service possible and conforms to all the strict food service rules.  Any food that is left over after the service, while still being perfectly good for continued consumption by guests, may no longer be suitable for refrigeration and re-heating under commercial food catering guidelines.  Depending upon a range of circumstances and timing, at the conclusion of the meal service we can leave you with any left overs that can be reasonably consumed within the food-safe guidelines but may not be able to leave excessive quantities that will be stored and re-used outside of the rules.  Food made for commercial purposes can only be supplied under these stricter guidelines, so we do reserve the right to refrain from leaving excessive amounts of left over food even if some of your guests don’t turn up and there is excessive amounts left.  If you have any concerns regarding some guests arriving late, or a later meal sitting be required please contact us before your function so we can advise you of the options and safe-food handling practices needed to be able to leave you with as much left over food as possible. 

Yes, we can and have catered at just about every type of venue imaginable.  Our spit roast catering service is acceptable by all local councils that we have come across so far to cater in any hired hall, or public park/garden.  We will have a substantial amount of food and equipment for your function so it is essential that we have access to your venue at the time we advise necessary, and vehicle access to the site.  You will need to arrange our entry with your venue if you have hired the venue to ensure that our service to you runs on schedule.  Remember that as the venue is your choice it is your responsibility to ensure it is suitable for catering and that you have made the necessary arrangements needed for us to cater for you at your chosen location.

Apart from finger food which is best heated on-site immediately before service we don’t cook on-site.  Our spit roasts are cooked over charcoal which makes the best spit roasts, but cooking with charcoal is also the smokiest method and the slowest method which can take around 6 hours in total so costs for staff and equipment on site would increase significantly for you.  We also prepare all of our food in our health department licenced commercial kitchen where we can guarantee food safety, hygiene and the end result, things we can’t offer cooking on-site.  An essential part of the cooking process with roasts is resting time, so our cooking process incorporates the travel time as resting time, so that when we carve and serve the roasts they are the best they can possibly be.