Wild Game Catering by The Game Larder
Catering built on wild game
Game catering is a food service operation that plans, cooks and serves meals built around wild game, and The Game Larder runs exactly that kind of operation from a kitchen in London. As a catering business we prepare wild game for events of 20 to 500 covers, deliver it in temperature-held containers, and staff the service with a trained team. We work wild game in the whole range of service styles, from a standing canape reception to a plated five-course dinner, and every dish we plate starts from an oven-ready portion that our own kitchen breaks down and seasons before it reaches the pass. In this guide we define what game catering covers, what it costs, how an oven-ready product moves from field to fork, and how you book a date.
The name The Game Larder belongs to a new, independent project. We are not the former eat-wild operation that held this address, and we do not claim to be. We are a separate company, run separately, and this site is ours alone. We keep the subject of wild game because we build our whole business around it, not because we continue a predecessor. If you read an older page under the old name, treat it as history, not as our work. The larder is new; the game is the same.
What game catering means
To define the service, game catering is any food operation where wild game is the backbone of the menu rather than one dish on it. That covers standing receptions, seated dinners, outdoor shoots, corporate events and private parties, and it spans both on-site service, where we cook and serve at the venue, and off-site delivery, where the finished food arrives plated and held. The wild game we work includes red and game birds, as well as smaller game, and we treat every one of those species the way a butcher treats a premium cut, trimming, portioning and seasoning it for the heat it will meet.
How the industry splits the work
The catering industry sorts providers by who owns the food at each step, and our model sits in the middle. A full-service caterer brings the kitchen, the staff and the disposables, a delivery-only company brings the food and you bring the hands, and a hybrid brings the food plus a small crew for the pass. Most of our bookings are the hybrid: we deliver oven-ready product to your site and a 3 person team finishes, plates and clears. The table below is the same split, with the typical starting point for a 50 guest event, so you can see where a game caterer sits against the rest of the market.
| Service type | Who cooks | Who serves | Typical start, 50 guests |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full service | Caterer, on site | Caterer staff | From £45 per head |
| Delivery only | Caterer, off site | Your staff or guests | From £18 per head |
| Hybrid, our default | Caterer, finishes on site | Caterer crew of 3 | From £28 per head |
Those are the numbers that open a quote, not a fixed price. The final rate moves with the menu, the cover count and the date, and we state the difference plainly when it does. A birthday party in a London kitchen costs us less to run than the same menu at a country house with no lift, and we price the difference rather than burying it.
Wild game menus by season
Wild game catering for a menu is built around the season, because that is when the game is at its best and when the supply is legal and plentiful. Our menus turn with the calendar. In the high season, from September through to January, the red game and the game birds are the centrepiece, and we build a menu around the shoot or the day. In the colder months a Christmas menu leans on the same game with heavier sides, and in the shoulder months we carry smaller game and offal so the menu keeps moving even when the big species are quiet. The shape below is a real menu from a seated dinner we ran for 40 guests, so you can see the order and the pacing.
- Canape and starter, served standing for 20 minutes
- Main, a single game dish with two sides, plated for 40
- Cheese and pudding course, kept simple so the game carries the table
- Finish, coffee and a small sweet, served from the pass
We keep the menu to 4 courses for a seated dinner because the game needs the room. A fifth plate of small bites would dilute the main, and we have seen a room forget the dish it came for. The side dishes change with the season, and we list them on the day, but the spine of the menu stays the same from one event to the next.
The oven-ready product
Our oven-ready product is the heart of the service, and it is what lets a 3 person crew turn out a full dinner on a site that has no kitchen of its own. Every portion leaves our London kitchen trimmed, seasoned and portioned, packed in a labelled container with a one line cooking card on top that gives the heat, the time and the internal target. The guest venue only has to run it through the oven and plate it. The table below is the card as it ships, and the values on it are the ones the pass follows, so a dish made in your oven tastes the same as one made in ours.
| Portion | Prep state | Oven setting | Time | Internal target |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Red game, 4 portions | Trimmed, seasoned | 180 C | 22 to 28 minutes | 68 to 72 C |
| Game bird, whole | Trussed, spiced | 190 C | 30 to 35 minutes | 74 C |
| Smaller game, skewers | Portioned, glazed | 200 C | 15 to 18 minutes | 70 C |
Two rules hold the whole thing together. First, the internal target is the only number that matters, and we teach every crew to check it with a probe rather than trust the clock. Second, the container is the second oven. We pack the food so it holds its temperature for up to 90 minutes in transit, which is what lets us carry a finished portion from a London kitchen to a country venue and hand it over still hot. We use the same container for the return leg, so the disposables come back and the food waste goes to a compost partner.
Booking and delivery
To book a date, send us the venue, the cover count and the date, and we answer with a menu and a rate within 2 working days. We hold a limited number of dates per week, so the earlier you book the more of the calendar is open to you. Delivery runs on our own vehicles, and we cover London and the surrounding counties, which means that most of the people who search for game catering near you, delivered will find a date on our calendar rather than a company that cannot reach the venue. The steps below are the order we run every booking through.
- Confirm the date, the cover count and the venue access
- Choose a menu or let us set one to the season
- Sign the booking and pay the 30 per cent deposit
- Receive the menu and the timing card 7 days out
- We deliver, the crew finishes, and the food is cleared on the day
We ask for 4 weeks lead time for a seated dinner and 2 weeks for a standing event. If a date falls in the high season we ask for 6 weeks, and we say so when we quote it. The deposit is refundable up to 14 days out, and after that it holds the date, which is why we keep it. A vacancy in our crew calendar is the real constraint, not the kitchen, so the booking we accept is the one we can fully staff.
Weddings and large events
Wild game catering for weddings is the booking that tests the whole system, because the room is largest, the timing is fixed by the couple, and there is no second chance on the day. We plan a wedding menu the same way we plan a dinner, around the game and the season, and we add the two things a wedding needs that a corporate event does not: a held buffer of finished food, and a crew that stays for the full service, which runs to 6 hours for a standard day. A 120 guest wedding is the scale we quote most often, and the rate for it is set per head from the menu, the same way the table above sets the smaller events.
For a wedding we also sort the food for the guests who will not take the game. We keep a vegetable and a fish plate alongside the main, so a table of 10 never leaves a guest without a dish, and we label each plate so the crew serves the right one without asking. That is the same standard we apply to a corporate breakfast, a birthday party or a Christmas gathering. The game leads, but the menu does not leave anyone out, and that is the line we hold across every size of event we take.