Nomad-catering.co.uk

Below is my own honest and true opinion of my experience with Nomad Catering regarding the services we received from our initial booking to our wedding day on 17 June 2022. When we first enquired over 2 years ago now we were incredibly excited to book our wedding food with Nomad. We shared ideas, agreed a preliminary bespoke menu which suited our tastes and us as a couple, rather than the traditional wedding breakfast. The person we spoke to appeared to be passionate and enthusiastic and that made us incredibly excited and crucially we trusted them wholeheartedly! Fast forward to booking our first wedding food tasting. We requested a tasting on the 29 January 2022, this date is incredibly special as it marks my nanans birthday, the first birthday since she passed and we felt this date was perfect as a way of having her there with us for the experience as she was meant to be a huge part of our wedding day and wedding experience. We had booked and confirmed our tasting date and time and all was arranged. Myself and now Husband as well as both of our mums and dads all booked hotel rooms in Harrogate to make a real occasion of the tasting so we could all have an amazing time together (we each live at least 1 hour away from the tasting venue). I was then contacted by Nomad late one Saturday night to say we needed to change our tasting time. There was no explanation given for the reason, I just received the email and when I responded immediately it took three full days to then get hold of anyone at Nomad to find out why we had been asked to change. Simultaneously, over that same weekend I saw on Instagram that Nomad Catering were attending an open weekend at Thief Hall that very same weekend of our wedding tasting. When I spoke to our operations manager contact via a telephone conversation the following week when I eventually managed to get hold of someone, I was told there were no issues with our arranged tasting and there would be no clashes with the open weekend. I stated, incredibly specifically, to this person that if the chef at the tasting would not be the chef on our wedding day I wanted to rearrange the tasting as there was no point us attending for the food to vary on the day. I was promised that the chef preparing, cooking and serving our food at the wedding tasting would be the same chef as the one on our wedding day. I stated again that I would rearrange if that wasn't the case as I didn't want our tasting being hindered by the open weekend, for which Nomad again categorically stated there were no issues and our wedding chef would be at the tasting to prepare and cook our food. When the wedding tasting arrived, the named chef for our wedding left before we had received our starters after having a brief conversation on his way out of the door. We were then served what can only be described as a disastrous meal which we had provided feedback on numerous times now. The quality, preparation and general care for what we were served was so poor and so far from what we had agreed as a menu or imagined for our wedding day all 6 of us left incredibly disappointed and underwhelmed. My fiancé and I started to look at other caterers due to how bad the experience had been. When we contacted Nomad to explain each issue in turn the excuses were endless. Those we spoke with at Nomad admitted to us that they had never worked with the chef from the first tasting previously and they hadn't realised how poor quality they would be, but they had stretched themselves too thin and over committed especially given the thief hall event. They actually admitted that to us! When we were promised it would be good on the day we asked how he or us could be sure when our only experience had left us in tears looking for a new caterer 5 months till our wedding. We practically pleaded for a second tasting, after being told time and time again that it's something Nomad do not do as they always get it perfect. It was admitted the food at our tasting was atrocious, yet we were still expected to trust all would work out on the day itself! After many emails and conversations, with yet more excuses and blame being placed on us for the food and service being so poor Nomad apparently relented and agreed to a second tasting. Which only myself and my fiancé were allowed to attend, we were only allowed a weekday night and we were made to pay again for the privilege of our wedding caterer being so bad the first time that we had to come again. The customer service was absent from then in, we were again made to feel this was our fault and our issue and we're honestly worried for our wedding day. After speaking with my dad, the operations manager contact agreed we could each pay £5 less for the second tasting. The reason was to 'cover ingredients' which for two people allegedly cost £70…when we did arrive for the second tasting and were asked what drinks we would like my fiancé asked for a beer. To bare in mind these are multipack drinks from the supermarket. We were informed it was a 'dry night' and they were not serving alcohol. The group who were also in attendance for their wedding food tasting managed to bypass the dry night however and had beers, wines and Prosecco on their table. While we were allowed cans of pop only, making sure they got back the £10 they had 'lost' from our tasting fee. During our second tasting the chef chatted to us throughout and we appreciated his time and expertise and advice on our food and menu. The food was outstanding when prepared and cooked by this chef and we enjoyed it and it made us excited again for our wedding! We felt maybe the run up to this had been a blip and things would now turn a corner. We tried to ignore the unprofessionalism of the chef and server/ops manager having a prolonged argument right in front of us in the kitchen which was beyond awkward to experience. Our relationship with the operations manager contact was already way passed salvaging but speaking to the chef really did help and made us feel more comfortable as we were now 4 months from the wedding. We agreed a preliminary final menu, including the method of cooking certain dishes, some tweaks to be made and all specific details which were noted down and included in our final detail notes. We then didn't hear from Nomad Catering again, at all. Unless it was to add charges to our invoice…I contacted our contact 4 weeks before the wedding to ask for our finalised menu so that I could get them printed. No response. I contacted 3 weeks before the wedding. Again no response. I then rang to ask to speak to the chef for our wedding just over 2 weeks before our wedding and didn't manage to get a call back despite leaving messages. When I did receive an email back the details were incorrect and had become muddled with vegetarian options. I then tried to call Nomad again and after a couple of days when it was 2 weeks till our wedding day and I was absolutely at the end of my tether with not having our menu finalised, a new member of the Nomad team answered the call and was so helpful. Every other call people had took a message and never offered to help or asked what the issue was. This person took the time to find out our names and wedding date, asked about the issues and solved our outstanding vegetarian main and helped us come to a finalised menu which was sent to me. She also shared the available toppings for the pizzas for our evening food and explained there would be a blackboard which showcased the pizza names and toppings for guests which we could personalise to suit us. We agreed the menu, the names and toppings for our pizzas and were content we had at least something in order! This person explained that the final invoice would be sent to us 2 weeks before our wedding day, to be paid 1 week before. 8 days before our wedding I still hadn't received the invoice and I had to actually get in touch and ask to be sent the final invoice for our wedding food! The wedding day - the food was not as agreed at all and was such poor quality I can't even begin to describe. It's the one stain on our wedding day and I'm actually so embarrassed by what was served that I didn't and still don't speak to any guests about our food because I'm so ashamed for it to be associated with what was otherwise a perfect day. I have no idea who the chef was (it seems to have been the chef from the first tasting!) but I can say it was definitely not the agreed and promised chef as I like to think he would have been embarrassed to send food out as it was! The starters: the arancini balls had no arancini in, literally none. They were less than half the size of what we were served previously and had hardly any filling. The king prawns were shocking, they weren't chargrilled in a garlic, buttery white wine sauce. They looked like frozen barely cooked prawns which were rubbery and in goodness only knows what. It could have been oil, but there was no flavour and no finesse. The focaccia came with olives in, that had never been discussed! In fact, we specifically said we hate olives! Yet the little bit of focaccia we received was saturated in olives! The tomato and chilli jam was a tomato paste and nothing more. The main: the lasagne had little flavour. The chicken dish was actually either rubbery or dry. The risotto, no one actually believed was a risotto, guests thought it was mash potato so you can only imagine the consistency! On the other hand the chargrilled veg of carrots and broccoli was so undercooked it was inedible. The ciabatta didn't appear to have any garlic at all. The zucchini fritti were slimy and unappetising rather than crisp and fresh. The dessert: This was perhaps the most embarrassing course of all. The dessert presentation was so embarrassing and looked so utterly rude for want of a better way of putting it that guests took pictures and were laughing at how it looked! The flavourless and stale cannoli has been I suppose dipped/had a transparent white sauce poured on which looks disgustingly vile and vulgar. I cannot believe this would be served to anyone, let alone at a wedding and I am mortified it was served as if it was acceptable! There was no pistachio for the pistachio cannolis which should have been dipped in white chocolate and then dipped into chopped pistachios. There was no flavour and the texture was like a biscuit that has been left out a week. The bomboloni, most didn't actually have any filling and those that did had a drop of lemon. They weren't bursting with a sharp lemon taste, they were bland dough! The Sicilian love cake was actually lovely, thank goodness. Even the dipped strawberries were messy and not like the ones we had at our second tasting which were refreshing and had a lovely sherbet on top. I wish it ended there, I didn't think it could continue but to my dismay. When the evening food was served the pizzas and a bowl of chips were put onto our sweet table, with our sweet jars shoved up the table to accommodate, when they should have gone onto the top table. The lovely personalised blackboard we were promised was nowhere to be seen, and guests had absolutely no idea what toppings were on any pizzas. Absolutely none. The time we had taken to name the pizzas after our favourite destinations we have visited together was wasted, choosing toppings to match. A complete waste, guests had to guess what they were eating! The vegetarians didn't eat any as they didn't know what they could and couldn't! By the time I saw this issue I asked our venue to help and they went and printed a sign for the pizzas, but by then the damage was done as the pizzas had been out for some time. A tiny detail which I can't believe was forgotten? Is it not essential to make sure people know what they're eating? I sent a full complaint to Nomad following our wedding day - expecting some ownership/an apology/answers to questions (literally anything that a caring business would provide). I have attached a screenshot of the response I actually received. Needless to say we did NOT take this pay off, my now husband and I are absolutely determined that no other bride and groom should ever be made to feel the way that we have and still do. After many emails on my part, asking for answers to questions, again attached. We were sent a 'gesture of goodwill' which included 3 bottles of beer, a bottle of sparkling tea, a small Prosecco, a bottle of white wine, 2 jars of chutney, a jar of stuffed vine leaves, a tin of tomatoes and some brownies which have been sent during the heatwave. We haven't actually received a response to any of the questions we have asked, even now over 8 weeks later. What we have received is WhatsApp messages directly and phone calls to my dad stating various types of emotional blackmail to get us to drop our complaint. Some of these statements being incredibly extreme and upsetting in nature. All of the actions above don't begin to describe the feelings my fiancé and I have felt over the past year now. We have been so upset, disappointed, anxious, in despair. We trusted Nomad Catering to deliver on our wedding day despite all of the issues we had faced and yet they quite literally stained our special day. I wish I could say it ended there, but instead of apologising and answering any of our questions Nomad have informed us they have contacted a Solicitor. Rather than dealing with their own complaint, they have tried to scare us into not sharing our open and honest reflections on the service we received by telling us all contact will be through a solicitor whom has been in contact to, in my opinion, threaten legal proceedings and scare me to not share my own experiences. We are sharing this review (which is our opinion) in the hope that future couples can make an informed decision about their wedding caterer, appreciating that many couples have had good experiences with Nomad, but we unfortunately had a heartbreaking experience which lingers on creating severe anxiety and we do not want anyone to go through the same.