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Dublin Cattering
01 477 3691
Service · Same-day or next-day, across Dublin

Food sorted, while the family minds the rest.

Sandwich tray, hot soup, sweet tray, tea urn with everything you need alongside. Delivered to the house or the venue, set up at the time you ask, and discreetly collected later. Same-day turnaround when we can — most calls before 10.00 are at the door before 13.00.

15–120 head count From €14 / head, VAT included Same-day before 10.00 call
Ring 01 477 3691
A wake-spread on a Glasnevin family kitchen table — open sandwich tray, soup tureen with ladle, sweet tray of scones and small cakes, tea urn in the background

Why we do this

We started taking wake bookings in our second year. The first one was a neighbour on Synge Street — Niamh dropped off a sandwich tray and a urn of tea on a Tuesday afternoon, refused payment, and the family rang back six months later to say it had genuinely been the only thing they didn't have to think about that week. Since then it's been a steady quiet part of the calendar: between sixty and ninety wakes a year, mostly Dublin houses, almost always inside 24 hours of the call.

It's the lowest-margin work we do and we keep the pricing tight on purpose. The food has to be honest, the delivery has to be calm, and nobody from our side should be a presence in the house beyond the time it takes to set the table.

The standard wake tray

The default offering — what most families ask for — covers what people actually eat at a wake. We can adjust it freely; nothing on this list is required.

  • Sandwich tray. White and brown bread, four fillings: ham & mustard, egg mayonnaise, chicken salad, smoked salmon & cream cheese. Cut into quarters, arranged on serving boards. Vegetarian filling on request.
  • Hot soup. Two-litre tureens with ladle. Three soups in rotation depending on season: leek & potato, mushroom, tomato & basil. Soup is the one thing people actually want hot at a wake.
  • Sweet tray. Scones (plain and fruit) with butter and jam, two or three small cakes (lemon drizzle, fruit cake, an apple slice), shortbread.
  • Tea urn. 25-litre electric urn — we leave it plugged in on the counter. Tea bags, milk jug, sugar, cups and spoons all provided.
  • Plates & napkins. Paper plates and serviettes (we don't bring the real plates to a wake — the family shouldn't be doing washing-up that night).
  • Cling-film cover. Everything covered when we leave so guests can serve themselves through the afternoon and evening.

Optional extras: a hot tray of cocktail sausages, a quiche or two, a meat-and-cheese board for after-the-evening crowd. Each adds €2–€4pp to the figure.

Same-day timing — what's realistic

We can almost always turn around inside the same calendar day if the call comes in before 10.00. The numbers below are what we typically manage from the time we put the phone down to the time we ring the doorbell.

  • Call before 10.00 → at the door by 13.00 (3 hours)
  • Call before 12.00 → at the door by 15.30 (3.5 hours)
  • Call before 14.00 → at the door by 18.00 (4 hours)
  • Call after 14.00 → typically next morning by 10.00
  • Sunday calls — we deliver if we can; no kitchen prep happens on Sundays, so the menu is reduced to sandwiches, sweet tray and the urn

Saturdays are tighter (the kitchen is on a wedding most weekends) but we'll often find a way — Tomás or Aoife will do the wake run while Niamh covers the wedding service.

How delivery works at the house

Setup takes 15–20 minutes. We come into the kitchen, lay out the trays on the counter or kitchen table, plug in the urn, leave the cling-film on everything for now, and you tell us where to be unobtrusive. We don't stay. The urn is yours to keep plugged in for the whole afternoon; we collect it the following morning, or two days after if that's gentler.

  • Aoife or Tomás makes the delivery, in a plain navy van — no signage on the side panels
  • Setup at the time you've asked, not before
  • Collection of urn and serving boards next morning between 09.30 and 11.30 — gentle ring of the doorbell, no fuss
  • Paper plates / napkins / leftover food we leave with the family — no waste taken away
  • Invoice arrives by email seven days later, never sooner

Per-head pricing — VAT included

  • Standard wake tray (sandwiches, soup, sweet tray, urn): from €14pp for groups of 25–60
  • Smaller wake (15–24 people): from €17pp
  • Larger wake (60–120 people): from €13pp
  • Hot tray addition (sausages, quiche, etc.): +€2.50–€4pp
  • Meat-and-cheese board (for the evening crowd): +€5pp
  • Travel inside the M50 ring included; further out we only charge if it's a real distance (Wicklow / Meath houses) and never for the first wake from a family we've cooked for before

Payment is by bank transfer or cheque, seven days after the wake. We don't ask for deposits on wake bookings — the family has enough to think about.

Ring whenever it makes sense

We pick up the phone and
we don't ask twenty questions.

Address, head count, time you want it at the house. Two minutes. We'll text once the van is ten minutes out.

01 477 3691