FESTIVE SEASON
Festive Season Catering — Christmas Lunch at Home, Done Properly
Ke Dezemba is the busiest table of the year. We cook it, serve it and clean up after it — you host it barefoot.
Fixed itemised quote before you pay a deposit · Reply within 1 hour, 08:00–20:00 SAST.
Festive season catering in Cape Town covers Christmas Day lunch at home or in your villa, New Year's Eve canapés, and the recovery braai after — from R850 per person for plated dinners. Public holidays carry a published 1.5× multiplier, and December 25, 31 and January 1 a published 2×. It is on the rate card, not in the fine print. from R850 pp per person · Min invoice R3,900.
The season, catered honestly
Festive season catering in Cape Town covers Christmas Day lunch at home or in your villa, New Year's Eve canapés, and the recovery braai after — from R850 per person for plated dinners. Public holidays carry a published 1.5× multiplier, and December 25, 31 and January 1 a published 2×. It is on the rate card, not in the fine print.
The super-peak window — 26 December to 7 January — is the tightest capacity we run all year. This page exists to be straight with you about that: the earlier you book, the more menu and format choice you have, and the calmer December becomes.
The formats below cover the whole fortnight, not just the 25th: Christmas Eve suppers, Christmas Day lunch, Boxing Day braais, New Year's Eve canapés and the slow lunches in between. Most families book two or three moments across the window, and we plan them as one menu.
The book-by calendar
Honest lead times, based on how the season actually fills.
- Christmas Eve & Christmas Day — book by early December; the last two weeks are usually waitlist-only
- New Year's Eve — book by mid-December; late-night finishes need staffing confirmed early
- Super-peak 26 Dec – 7 Jan — book weeks ahead; this is when the city's villas are full and so is our calendar
- Recovery braais and January lunches — more forgiving, but the first week of January still fills
- Off-peak December weekdays — genuinely available, same menus, no multiplier
Multiplier transparency
Peak pricing exists because chefs give up their own Christmas to cook yours — we would rather publish the multiplier than pretend it away. Public holidays run at 1.5× the standard rate; December 25, December 31 and January 1 run at 2×. The multiplier applies to the chef and staffing lines, never to groceries, which stay at cost with receipts.
Every festive quote itemises the multiplier as its own line, so you can see exactly what the date costs versus the menu. If your dates are flexible, we will happily show you the same menu on a non-multiplier day — the difference is often significant.
One thing that never changes with the date: the cancellation tiers and the replacement-or-refund guarantee are the published ones, all season. The only festive-specific term is that super-peak deposits — 26 December to 7 January — are non-refundable, because those dates cannot be resold once held for you.
Festive formats
Christmas Day lunch done plated or family-style, a Boxing Day braai, NYE canapés and cocktails — the three formats that carry the season.
Private chef dinner (10+ guests)
fromR850pp
Min invoice R3,900
Gourmet private braai
fromR650pp
Min 6 guests / R5,500 min invoice
Canapés reception
fromR395pp
Min 20 guests
A Cape Town Christmas menu
Summer Christmas is its own cuisine — cold starters, fire, and long light. This is the register we cook in.
- 01Canapés — smoked snoek pâté, prawn cocktails done properly, tomato-and-basil crostini
- 02Starter — chilled cucumber-and-mint soup or a burrata-and-stone-fruit salad
- 03Main — whole linefish or gammon on the braai, apricot glaze, or slow lamb shoulder
- 04Sides — roast potatoes, charred greens, a proper trifle-adjacent berry salad
- 05Dessert — malva pudding, brandy ice cream, or a pavlova with Cape berries
For villas full of family
If the family is in a villa for the whole window, a single Christmas booking often becomes two or three — Christmas lunch, a Boxing Day braai, a New Year's Eve spread. Booked together, we plan the stretch as one menu so nothing repeats, shopping consolidates, and you get one itemised quote for the lot.
For longer stays, our villa chef service covers the full festive window day by day — breakfasts through dinners — and pairs naturally with a single catered event on the big day itself.
Corporate year-end lunches are a different buyer with different needs — invoicing, headcounts in the hundreds, venues rather than villas. If that is what you are planning, our year-end functions page is the right door; this page stays with families and villa groups.
Real events, not staged ones
Our first case study for this occasion publishes after the event is delivered — photographed with the client's permission, never staged. We don't fake these.
Occasion questions, answered.
Other occasions & services
Tell us the date, the guests and the place.
We handle everything else — menu, shopping, cooking, service, cleanup. Guaranteed.
Replacement-or-refund · Fixed itemised quote · Published cancellation tiers