Earlier this month, Italian Banquet Company catered a 30-guest wedding at Drumkilbo House, the private country house near Meigle in Perthshire. Four courses, plated to order, served by a brigade of six, cooked entirely from the venue's domestic kitchen — and reviewed two days later by the groom in a five-star Google review that captured exactly what we set out to deliver.
This is the story of that wedding: the venue, the menu, the brigade, the dietary requirements that shaped the table, and the family relationship that brought the booking to us in the first place.
The venue: Drumkilbo House, Perthshire
Drumkilbo House sits between Meigle and Alyth, on the border between Perth and Kinross and Angus. Like many of Scotland's most beautiful country house wedding venues, it is first and foremost a private home — a Category B listed estate with formal dining rooms, a marble fireplace, original period features and a working domestic kitchen rather than a commercial pass.
The dining room where this wedding was served has yellow walls, antique Queen Anne chairs with red velvet cushions, display cabinets of decorative plates lit from within, and a carved marble fireplace facing the long table the family chose for service. A single wedding banquet table runs the length of the room, set for 30 — exactly the kind of room where a long Italian banquet should happen, and exactly the kind of room a hotel ballroom can never replicate.
For couples planning a Perthshire country house wedding, Drumkilbo House offers something most catering operators struggle with: the venue is private, characterful and beautiful, but the kitchen behind the wall is the kitchen of a country home, not a commercial unit. That requires a caterer built specifically for the conditions. We are.
The menu: four courses, seven starters, no compromise
The couple's brief was a bespoke four-course Italian banquet with full provision for several allergies and intolerances across the guest list. The menu we built for them ran as follows.
Canapés on arrival
- King prawns wrapped in Parma ham
- Arancini with brie and prosciutto
- Crispy roasted pork belly
- Vegan stuffed mini bell peppers for the plant-based guests
- A rotating selection of additional bites adapted to dietary requirements
Canapés were served in the drawing room ahead of the meal, while final pasta was being cut and finished in the kitchen.
Starter — seven options across the table
To accommodate every dietary requirement at the table without segregating guests onto a "special menu," we built seven starter options that travelled together to the table. Highlights included:
- Homemade mushroom linguini, pasta cut on the morning of the wedding
- Aubergine parmigiana, baked in the venue's domestic oven
- Vegan coconut and beetroot risotto
- Plus four further options matched to the guests' specific dietary briefs
The principle: every guest at an Italian Banquet Company table eats the same quality of food, regardless of dietary requirement. That standard is non-negotiable on every booking.
Main course — three options
- Beef fillet, prepared two ways: Wellington and sous-vide
- Seared sea bass with celeriac purée
- Vegan lasagna with lentil ragù, prepared in parallel for the plant-based guests
Mains were plated in the kitchen to order, sauced with a rich pan jus, and served with tenderstem broccolini, wilted greens and golden roast potatoes — all finished in the same venue kitchen the family uses to make weekday dinners.
Dessert trio
- Giuseppe's tiramisù, dusted with cocoa
- Fresh berries with cream
- Vanilla crêpes Suzette flambé with caramelised apple
Three desserts, one plate per guest, no compromise. Each plated to order across the dessert pass during service.
The brigade: six chefs in a private country house kitchen
For a wedding at this scale, in this kind of venue, the team has to be built for the specific conditions. Here is the structure that worked at Drumkilbo House:
- Giuseppe Manzoli on the pass, finishing every plate before service
- Two senior chefs prepping starters, mains, dessert and the parallel vegan track
- Three front-of-house team members running canapé service, table service and the final clear-down
Six people total. One pre-printed run sheet. One service window. Thirty guests served four courses, hot, on time and properly composed.
The kitchen at Drumkilbo House is, like most Scottish country house wedding venues, a domestic kitchen. There is no industrial gas range, no walk-in fridge, no commercial extractor and no pro pass. Most caterers either decline these bookings or downgrade the menu to something that travels in hotboxes. We do neither. Italian Banquet Company is built around bringing our own knives, sauté pans, plating tools, run sheet and pacing discipline into the venue's existing kitchen, and producing a full Italian banquet out of it.
If you have ever cooked dinner for sixteen guests in a domestic kitchen and felt the strain, scale that thought to thirty plated covers, four courses, with seven dietary tracks running in parallel. That is the operational brief our brigade is built around. It is also why we exist.
The family story behind the booking
This wedding came to us through a relationship that pre-dates Italian Banquet Company itself. The groom's review explains it better than we can:
"Giuseppe has done some small events for the family in the past, and when I heard he had a team who were able to cater for us I was over the moon. The food is just so good. Giuseppe is so passionate and the options we had were endless. With quite a few allergies and intolerances in the group, it wasn't the easiest party to cater for however it was no problem at all for Giuseppe. The waiters and kitchen staff couldn't have been nicer and they really made our special day."
— Stuart McNeill, May 2026 (five-star Google review)
That sentence — Giuseppe has done some small events for the family in the past — describes a story that is woven through the majority of our wedding bookings now. Italian Banquet Company didn't start as a company. It started as one chef cooking dinner in the kitchens of clients who wanted something better than the local catering circuit could offer. Birthdays, anniversaries, small private dinners across Perthshire, Angus, Fife and the wider east coast of Scotland. Years of that work, repeated for the same families, built the relationship the brand was eventually built around.
What changed when those families' weddings started arriving on the calendar wasn't the food. It was the scale. The Italian Banquet Company brigade exists so that a 30-guest wedding banquet eats as well as a six-person private dinner did a decade earlier — same head chef, same standards, same food, simply more hands.
Frequently asked questions
Does Italian Banquet Company cater weddings at Drumkilbo House?
Yes. We have catered at Drumkilbo House and similar Perthshire country houses, and our brigade is specifically built for venues with private rather than commercial kitchens. If you are planning a Drumkilbo House wedding, we would be delighted to discuss your menu.
Can you handle allergies, intolerances and dietary requirements at a wedding?
Yes — as a standard, not as an exception. Many of our wedding bookings involve multiple dietary requirements across the guest list. For the Drumkilbo House wedding above, we built seven starter options to accommodate every guest at the table without segregating any onto a separate menu. Every guest eats the same quality of food, regardless of dietary need.
Do you cook in non-commercial kitchens?
Yes. The vast majority of Scotland's most beautiful country house wedding venues do not have commercial kitchens — they are private estates with domestic kitchens. Italian Banquet Company is built specifically for this. We bring our own knives, pans, plating equipment, run sheet and pacing discipline into the venue's existing kitchen and produce four-course Italian banquets out of it.
How many staff do you bring to a wedding?
The brigade scales to the booking. For a 30-guest wedding at Drumkilbo House, we deployed six people: Giuseppe Manzoli on the pass, two chefs and three front-of-house. For larger weddings, the brigade scales appropriately while keeping the same head chef on the pass throughout.
Where else in Scotland do you cater?
We cater Italian wedding banquets across Perthshire, Tayside, Angus, Fife and the wider east coast of Scotland. You can read more about our work in Fife, at Alexander House in Perthshire, and our full Perthshire 2026 guide on costs, menus and self-catering house service.
How do we book Italian Banquet Company for our wedding?
Share your date, venue, guest count and the kind of celebration you have in mind via our contact page, and we will come back to you with a bespoke menu proposal built around your day.
Plan your wedding with Italian Banquet Company
If you are planning a wedding at a private country house in Perthshire, Angus, Fife, or anywhere in Scotland where the kitchen wasn't built for fifty people — that is the brief Italian Banquet Company is built for. Same head chef on the pass, same standards we have held since the private chef days, same care for every guest at the table.