Eat & Smile Foods

First things first: Eat & Smile's food is out-of-this-world delicious. The staff is helpful in doing much more that cooking and serving food. Oliver Friendly, the owner, is incredibly accommodating and will work with any budget. We were sold on Eat & Smile from the minute Oliver has us for dinner at his house. Everything is local; his dishes are so creative. His customer services is outstanding; he was responsive within the hour on 99% of my 66 emails (yes, I just looked up the chain). He even gave his cellphone number to one of my guests with Celiac disease to discuss her specific dietary requirements. Beyond all this, he's beyond helpful in recommending venue setup ideas and other vendors. We received many compliments on the food; our guests loved Eat & Smile's unique twists to traditional dishes.

My wife and I absolutely loved working with Oliver and his staff. For starters he is one of the nicest guys ever and was incredibly responsive to our endless amount of questions throughout the planning process. He worked with us to produce a menu tailored to the season as well as our different heritages. As for the food, it's out of this world good! At the end of the night, Oliver and his awesome staff left the venue cleaner than how we found it.

Oliver created the most fantastic menu - and with me as vegetarian but the grooms family very meat and potatoes! Can you believe the best Chickpea Fritters with Roasted Garlic, Caramelized Onions, Cilantro and Homemade Cornichons. This is someone who will work with you on food and gets excited that you care about food and want something offbeat. All this ingredients are local and the quality is therefore excellent.

Oliver is incredibly personable and enthusiastic. He also knows his stuff, will head off any problems and anticipates needs and has good ideas. For example - he asked about a wedding cake. I said I was in two minds about having a wedding cake at all and he replied that a number of his couples like petits fours at their wedding instead of cake. He has a wonderful pastry chef who does great petits fours. This immediately caught my fancy and they were indeed delicious (hint - order loads!).

Oliver also has the most wonderful staff who, he says, will not start out at weddings. In fact, he says that they stay with him - which says something about Oliver. You can rest comfortably in his capable hands.

When we first started planning our wedding, we didn't think that we would find a caterer that we could use. We are both vegetarians, and try to eat only local, humane dairy and eggs.

Fortunately, we came upon Eat & Smile Foods on a popular food blog, The Bitten Word. It sounded too good to be true: Eat & Smile Foods got all of their produce, dairy (and meat) from local farmers markets, fresh every week.

And while that would have been enough, it turned out that the food was incredible. Oliver, the owner and chef, listened to what we wanted, and prepared a spectacular tasting menu that was not only local and humane, but also mouth-watering.

As vegetarians, we have come to expect rice and grilled vegetables at weddings. Eat & Smile was far from that. Here are just some of the highlights: Fried Mac & Cheese, butternut squash soup shots, grilled cheese with olive tapanade, falafels with chili and yogurt, and mushroom fricase spoons.

Not only was Oliver respectful and careful to adhere to our dietary restrictions, but we also had guests who had serious nut allergies. While some chefs will make separate dishes, Oliver did not want any incidents, and so did not use any nuts in the menu.

Eat & Smile Foods also offers signature cocktails, and ours were a big hit. Oliver works with a stellar mixologist and they complimented our food wonderfully.

We wholly recommend Eat & Smile Foods for any event. While ours was a wedding, I am already plotting some big party for something so we can use them again! :)

I don't even know where to begin at explaining how amazing the experience of hiring Eat & Smile Foods for my wedding was. I originally came across E&S because of their commitment to local foods, a passion of mine. I was delighted to find that behind the shared passion was a dynamic, friendly, brilliant and organized chef running the show. Any bride will tell you how many times you need to communicate with the catering company - never once did Oliver make me feel like I was bothering him. He offered mounds of advice, was incredibly flexible, extremely understanding of budgetary restrictions (and has VERY fair prices), a creative problem solver, and passionate about locally sourced food.

The day of the event his staff and he were all incredibly accommodating, helpful and pleasant. Every single one of them wore a smile while working hard. They arrived on time, set up the space and worked with my team of friends, had the venue ready for action in record time, and cleaned out the place so efficiently that I didn't have to worry about the venue being anything less than perfectly cleaned at the end of the night.

On to the food. Oh, THE FOOD! Let me tell you, I have had, no lie, SIX people tell me the day after the wedding how they were craving another one of his sliders. The ironic and sad reality is that I barely had time to eat anything myself. But I can tell you that an abundant amount of people told me how much they loved the food. Oliver even added some surprises, like a fresh watermelon he picked up at the farm stand just down the street from the venue. We chose to have wine and beer and one vodka-based signature drink for the evening. By far, the signature drink creation of Oliver's stole the show and now we have more leftover wine than we know what to do with and half-full wasted kegs of beer. Who knew?!

I can't rave enough about hiring Eat & Smile Foods for my wedding. I can't think of a single negative thing to say, which is a rare occasion for a somewhat picky person like myself. BRAVO, OLIVER!!

We were so happy with everything about our wedding food. Living in the DC area, it was a big challenge to find a food vendor willing to provide local, seasonal, and humanely raised food for a big event. Fortunately, this is the only type of food Eat & Smile Foods provides. The owner, Oliver, was easy to work with, and he helped us save money by pointing out some things we could do ourselves (such as purchasing tablecloths instead of renting through him and supplying our own drinks). We had a fairly complicated bar set up, and he moved a person from working in the kitchen to working in the bar to back up the bar tender, and it worked out perfectly. All of Oliver’s recommendations were spot on, and the food was excellent. Additionally, it was great to have Oliver there in person on the day of the event working back in the kitchen, so we had no doubt everything would be as great as it was during our sample tasting. We've heard a lot of catering companies will have you meet with their chef for the tasting, but on the day of the event everything is farmed out to a bunch of catering staff you have never met. This is not the case with this caterer. We also used the baker who is associated with Eat & Smile (Samantha), and our cake was amazing. We’d highly recommend using both Oliver and Samantha.

very easy to work with

Eat & Smile Foods catered my wedding this April. Chef Oliver Friendly was great during the planning process, working with my bride and I to create a menu we know everyone would love. He focused on spring flavors using a lot of Asparagus, Ramps, and Tomatoes. We had 4 passed hors d'ouevres, a plated 3 course meal (2 appetizers, 2 entrees), cake, and coffee. It was all delicious. He provided all the servers, flowers, linens, bartenders, plates, glasses, and equipment for a very reasonable price. The food was amazing, the staff was friendly, and the overall service was fantastic. I highly recommend them!

Oliver is amazing! I'm a bit of a food snob, as I cook a lot myself. My husband and I had Oliver's food before so we knew it was delicious and locally sourced. However, we were amazed at how organized and accommodating he was when we planned our post-elopement wedding brunch.

We started planning our reception/brunch only about a month before the event. Oliver was prompt in responding to my emails and very clear about pricing and options. Additionally, we had a lot of food allergies or dietary restrictions amongst our guests. Oliver managed to handle a combination of lactose intolerance, vegans, and peanut allergies with no problems. He even made us two cakes.

On the day of our brunch, Oliver was on time and ready to go. He made great suggestions on how to set up for the event, including putting the bar outside on the back deck. His staff was wonderful and really helpful. Our guests loved the food and there was tons of it for everyone. Oliver and his staff even tolerated my dog running around under foot with no complaints! I would highly recommend Oliver for your wedding caterer.

Working with Oliver Friendly and Eat & Smile Foods was a phenomenal experience! He was incredibly flexible and easy to work with, especially considering the somewhat challenging aspects of our wedding venue (a barn with no running water, limited electricity, and tight space).

The team Oliver assembled for our event went way above the call of duty, helping us with so many things I never expected the catering staff to handle (setting up tables and chairs, placing flower bouquets, lighting candles, etc.). It made the set-up for our slightly DIY wedding SO much easier and smoother.

We also really appreciated Oliver's honesty throughout the whole process, encouraging us, for example, to source our own alcohol rather than have him (or any other caterer we went with) supply it, because we'd save so much money doing it ourselves. In the same vein, when our guest list ultimately ended up being smaller than we'd planned, Oliver volunteered to add another appetizer (our entire menu was passed hors d'oeuvres) for the same cost.

And most importantly, the food! Oliver's dedication to simple, straightforward, local fare meant the food at our wedding was delicious and memorable. Many, many guests told us it was the best food they'd ever had at a wedding. We'd have to agree!

All in all, it was a flawless experience. We'd HAPPILY use Oliver and Eat & Smile Foods again in the future.

Oliver Friendly hit it off with my Fiance from the beginning. We did the tasting in his home and were impressed with his food and service. Now catering in DC is expensive so I decided that if we were going to spend that kind of money it should be more than your typical dry chicken with string beans.We got a selection heavy appetizers, two desserts, cupcakes, and two drink mixers. The peach bourbon drink was out of sight!

Everyone loved the food and there were no complaints from our guest. We especially enjoyed the cocktail mixers. The only complaints I had were on the execution. Several of the dishes did not come out with their garnishes. Also for our pastrami it was really good if it was roast beef but it was cut way too thick to be pastrami. But hey it was his first time and it was homemade. I would have also liked a better quality bun.

Eat and Smile provided us with great food and great service. There were plenty of helpful hands when we decided to move the location of the ceremony last minute. The food was fresh and tasty, and they managed a tight outdoor space with lots of steps. They even Swiffer-ed our floors before they left! We would definitely recommend them.

Eat & Smile Foods catered my daughters wedding a few weeks ago. They did a great job. They made a fantastic menu of entirely locally sourced ingredients. We had baby BLTs with the chef's homemade bacon. They did a great 3 course plated meal starting with sweet pea soup with crab or a green salad with local cheese. We then had butter poached rockfish and bourbon roasted pork loin with french beans and fingerling potatoes. Their staff was attentive and professional, keeping everyone well fed and the drinks free flowing. They also provided plates, glassware, utensils, linens, flowers, cake, servers, and bartenders all for under $85 per person. I had a great experience with Eat & Smile Foods and I highly recommend them.

All local foods. All delicious. Highly recommend Chef Oliver.

Professional caterer providing interesting and tasty local food.

Oliver Friendly and his staff are the very best of the best... so inventive in their product and consummate professionals in their execution! For their clients, they exceed each and every expectation...as a vendor, they are more than a delight as partners in creating and delivering the Wedding Dreams of our shared clients. Any time "That's It! Wedding Concepts, LLC" is able to be on the same team as "Eat & Smile Foods" is a success waiting to happen!

Eat & Smile Foods is such a creative, detail-oriented caterer, and is perfect for couples who value local, sustainable ingredients and truly personalized menus. Far from a "wedding factory" catering company, Eat & Smile truly brings something different to the table.