Chichi Chef

Wedding location: private home in Lincolnville, ME
Date: July, 13, 2013
# of guests: 75
After meeting Susie, my husband and I were very excited for the ChiChi Chef to cater our wedding. While she is a very pleasant person, I found it extremely difficult to communicate with her throughout the planning process. She did address my concerns and apologized but we had hoped for a more seamless experience. So the below bullets are why we were so disappointed with the ChiChi Chef…
* Difficulties with communication throughout planning process
* When they arrived on our wedding day, they were shocked to find that I had not rented a stove for them. Yet I was never told to reserve one. Though they did quickly locate one and brought it over
* Susie had told us that the «Lobster Lily Pad» was an entrée sized item and that it was considered her signature item. It was described to us as a whole lobster on an edible lily pad, and that there would be a garlic butter sauce drizzled on top. We decided to order this an as appetizer, but I think they decided to skimp on it because of this. What we ended up with was a lobster tail on a small lettuce or basil leaf. Certainly not the stunning presentation that she had described, and I find it difficult to believe that this tiny plate could be served as an entrée. For the price, we would not have ordered this item.
* I have a severe pine nut allergy and was told that the pesto would be made with walnuts instead, yet after one bite I immediately knew that pine nuts were used. Susie quickly changed my entrée and said that she had instructed her staff to use walnuts but that containers could have been switched. I was very lucky that I realized after one bite… had I eaten more the night could have been a total disaster.
* My father (father of the bride) was not served his dinner until 45 minutes after everyone else.
* While guests had glasses of water on the tables, glasses were not refilled unless you requested it.
* Finally, weeks later, after speaking to my guests many of them complained that their food was cold. Some even told me that they could not eat their potatoes because they were completely raw. ChiChi staff was obviously struggling to cook the food consistently and had no way to keep items warm before serving. Others mentioned that the beef medallions were lacking in seasoning and that salt/​pepper on tables could have remedied this but they were not present.
Things we did enjoy:
* Susie had us over her home for a food tasting, which was delicious and very fun.
* The bacon wrapped dates were a huge hit at the wedding
* On the wedding day, she sure to keep some appetizers for us and had someone dedicated to making sure we were able to eat some.
* Food presentation was nicely done
In summary, Susie and her staff are very pleasant, but they were the most expensive part of our wedding and we were feeling hoping for that «wow» factor with guests. We were disappointed and would not recommend them to others.

My wedding was just over a year ago, and by most measures it could be called ‘big’ and ‘fancy’ and ‘extremely fun!’. The reception was a surreal blur of hugs and smiles, food, drinks, photos, speeches, and dancing. Amid the happy blur, several things stand out about the trappings of the night. Front and central is the food, which was incredibly well-​prepared and well-​presented. We didn’t micro-​manage the caterer or her staff– we just let them run. Not only would I call it one of the best meals of my life (seriously, wow), but even now when the subject of the wedding comes up with my family or my wife, the food ALWAYS gets mentioned as one of the highlights of a great weekend.
As a Unilocaler and a person with a very critical eye for customer service, I am sad to see a negative review posted here. I can’t comment on another person’s reported experience, of course– but I can come to the defense of a company that I carefully chose for my most special event, and who blew us away with their delivery, professionalism, smiles, and most of all– the best food. On a website like Unilocal,we have to hope and believe that over time the cream will rise to the top, and that the ‘truth’ about a company will emerge from the mist.

If I could find a way to hire Susie as my personal chef, I would. My wife and I were married in August and the food was terrific, the service, professional, and the guests had no complaints. In fact, our guests loved the raw, chilled oysters, lobster cucumber cups, smoked trout pâté on toast, and those were just the appetizers. The beef tenderloin was cooked to perfection, the fish entrée was delicious I’m told (I ate the beef), and the ravioli entrée was perfect. And, I should add, that this was all done using a small generator and no water hook ups. Susie just knew what to do and how to make it all happen.
I would recommend her in a second and I know my mother in law intends to use Susie for a future 70^th birthday party for herself… way, way in the future of course.
We are not local to Maine, so we needed someone who would just take care of «things» so we didn’t need to be anxious absentee planners. That’s Susie…
And, I do have photos from our photographer of the table, some of the passed appetizers, our specialty cocktail, all prepared by Susie. Everything was colorful and bright befitting the summer — and there was water, and the requisite pieces of silverware. I would be happy to share those with interested folks who contact me through this site.
While the previous posting was negative and called Susie’s performance subpar, I am sure we all know that sometimes it’s not always the vendor that can be challenging… perhaps, it’s well… you know.

Susie catered our wedding last summer and was amazing. The food was great., she was great and her staff was amazing. I totally rec Susie and chichi for anyone’s wedding.