Carmine’s Upper West Side

t set up, and a little more at our venue. My husband and I are huge fans of the Carmine's menu, and it was our goal to serve it at our wedding. The menu selection was a no-brainer since we knew exactly what we wanted food-wise, and they were very flexible in accommodating all of our special requests--our reception was on a Satuday, but we wanted to serve the Chicken Alla Romana (which is a Friday evening special dish at Carmine's) and they gladly accomodated. We also had a guest who required a gluten-free menu, and they were kind enough to offer gluten-free menu options for just one guest (at no additional charge.) We hired Carmine's for the food, but John did more than just oversee the food--he was there from the beginning in helping with venue suggestions as well as rental selections, and he was there on our wedding day until the end of the evening to make sure everything went as smoothly as possible. It was like having a coordinator who took care of everything from what goes on inside the kitchen to what needed to be set up outside the kitchen, and his team was courteous and efficient in carrying out everything from start to end. We cannot thank them enough.

go for dinner on our anniversary, every year so this was a perfect tie in for the event. We had Carmine's provide the food, the rentals and the staff (minus the bartenders). Carmine's is synonymous with AMAZING, GENEROUS, QUALITY Italian food in NYC & they lived up to their reputation and our expectations tenfold. We had originally looked into catering from another NYC restaurant but while doing our price shopping we were shocked to see how reasonable the prices at Carmine's Catering were and how friendly and accommodating John Dancu was to work with. He offered so much guidance in what would be enough food, what would be easiest to deliver to the venue - we kept him on our toes by changing the cocktail hour location to the roof of our venue and even moreso when we changed the "cut off time" for our rain plan to one hour before showtime - John & his staff were professional, on point, and BARELY SEEN. Honestly, beyond the woman who approached me and my husband to get a plate made for us I barely saw anyone but you know what else I didn't see? Dirty plates, glasses, cluttered tables - nothing. I'd recommend them to anyone looking to make their lives easier by having someone who can just HANDLE it and Carmine's, John, specifically, did.

ian food would be perfect. We tried out a few smaller restaurants and even did some tastings, but none of them had ever catered for a wedding. Carmine's has always been one of our favorite places for Italian, but I figured it'd be way out of our price range. When I started to run out of ideas, I decided to email them and get an idea of what the cost would be. Turns out, it was in our price range so we went in to meet with John Dancu who is in charge of catering. He was very organized and had tons of advice and information for me about planning our reception. He brought menu options, pricing, and began telling me about the rental company that he worked with as well. Our venue was a raw space so I figured I'd be working with tons of different vendors to get the linens, tables, dishes, glasses, etc. I was so relieved to find out that John could orchestrate all of that for me. When we decided to for sure go with Carmines, John became more of wedding coordinator for us than just a caterer. He was always quick to respond to my millions of questions, he was extremely organized, and even went to walk through our venue with me two times during our planning. When it came to the few weeks right before, I figured that our price was going to majorly be bumped up, as the rental cost was always just an estimate. It was actually the opposite, and I was thrilled to get my final quote for what our reception was going to cost because it was lower than I had expected. John helped us plan out the floorplan for our reception room and was always sending me reminders of things to not forget. On the day of, he arrived early and accepted all the deliveries we had scheduled on our own (DJ equiprment, ice, random materials, cakes). I didn't hear about anything going wrong and he was happy to help and show them where to put everything. He had our reception tables and ceremony chairs set up early in the day so that the people handling our decorations had time get everything out in time. He brought enough people to make the set up go smoothly, and even lit all of our candles for us during ceremony so that when we came downstairs the room was all ready to go. The food was absolutely amazing. People were talking about it the entire night and said that they'd never been to a wedding that actually had delicious, hot, food. My only complaint, I was too busy to go up for seconds! After the dinner, they continued to help throughout the reception. If a glass broke (we had a crazy dance party), it wasn't 30 seconds before they had cleaned it up. They set up our dessert table, favor table, and were on top of things the entire night. We had strict clean up rules at the venue, so I was hoping to not get a big bill during our honeymoon saying that we had a mess left behind, and I didn't. Carmines/John went above and beyond to help make our day so perfect. I couldn't be happier with John's amazing service. We are already figuring out how we can throw another party with Carmines, because they were awesome. If you want to see pictures of our actual day, and the food, visit my blog Strutcut.blogspot.com . I highly recommend going with Carmines for weddings and any big events you have. I'm sure you'll be as thrilled with the results as we were.