La Comida — Spanish Catering
Spanish Food Made for a Party
Paella may be at the heart of Ñora, but it is only the beginning.
Our menus are built around the way we love to eat: food that brings people together, ingredients worth getting excited about, and service that can move effortlessly from cocktails to dinner to dessert.
From live paella and passed tapas to overflowing Spanish grazing tables, jamón carving stations, dessert bars and full beverage service, we can build the food around the event you actually want to have.
We cook with a farm-to-table approach, using local farms, great producers and the best ingredients available through the seasons, then bring them together through the flavors and traditions of Spain.
Simple or elaborate. Backyard or ballroom. Passed, plated, buffet or cooked right in front of your guests.
This is what we do.
Paella, Perfected.
Paella
The Heart of Ñora
There is a reason we built a catering company around paella.
It feeds a crowd beautifully. It is naturally communal. And when it is cooked live, dinner becomes part of the event itself.
Our chefs arrive with the pans, burners and equipment needed to prepare paella on site. Guests can watch the rice go into the pan, smell the sofrito and saffron as everything comes together, and gather around while dinner is being made.
Then the pan becomes the centerpiece of the meal.
Paella Almost Anywhere
One of the things that makes our paella program so flexible is that we generally do not need a traditional catering kitchen at the venue.
Our portable cooking setup allows us to cater homes, gardens, wineries, event spaces, offices and venues where a full kitchen simply is not available. That flexibility has always been a huge part of what makes Ñora work.
Outdoor event? We do them all the time.
Rain in the forecast? We plan for it. Depending on the venue, we can work under appropriate cover, adjust the cooking location or develop a backup service plan with you in advance.
Venue restrictions? Limited kitchen access? Tight loading situation? Our team will talk through it before the event and figure out the service plan that makes the most sense.
And when live cooking is not practical, we have other ways to execute the menu without forcing the event into a setup that does not work.
The goal is not to make your venue work for us. It is to make our food work for your event.
From a Paella Party to Full Service
Paella can be the whole idea or simply the center of a much larger menu.
For a relaxed party, that might mean tapas followed by paella and churros.
For a wedding, it might begin with a grazing table and passed tapas, move into several paellas for dinner, then finish with a full dessert bar and late-night bites.
For a corporate event, paella can become the centerpiece around which we build staffing, beverages, rentals and the rest of the evening.
That flexibility is one of the things we love most about it.
Tapas
Small Plates, A Lot of Possibilities
Paella gives the meal its center. Tapas give us the freedom to build everything around it.
They can be elegant enough for a formal wedding, relaxed enough for a backyard party and flexible enough for a cocktail reception with hundreds of guests.
We serve tapas passed, plated, buffet-style and as part of grazing tables and stations.
Passed tapas keep a cocktail hour moving and give guests something exciting from the moment they arrive.
A tapas buffet creates variety without forcing everyone into the same meal at exactly the same moment.
Plated tapas allow us to create a more composed dinner or multi-course experience.
And when we combine several styles of service, tapas become the bridge between arrival, cocktails and the main event.
That is part of what makes Spanish food so naturally suited to catering.
Restaurant Cooking, Built for Events
Our approach comes from the same kitchen philosophy behind La Marcha Tapas Bar in Berkeley: Spanish technique, great ingredients and food that is meant to be shared.
Menus evolve with what our farms and purveyors are bringing us. We balance traditional Spanish dishes with the produce and ingredients we have access to here in Northern California.
The result is food that feels unmistakably Spanish without feeling stuck in the past.
Croquetas. Tortilla española. Conservas. Piquillo peppers. Local vegetables. Seafood. Cured meats. Cheese. Pintxos. Small bites designed around the event.
Some things are classic.
Some change with the season.
Everything has to be delicious.
The food, service and presentation were absolutely phenomenal.
Spanish Grazing Tables
The Showstopper Before Dinner
If paella is the show at dinner, the grazing table can own the room the moment guests walk in.
Our Spanish grazing tables can run several feet or take over an entire table, layered with Spanish cheeses, cured meats, olives, membrillo, conservas, breads, nuts, produce, preserves, pintxos and other small bites.
They are abundant, colorful and designed to be explored.
Guests immediately have something to eat, something to talk about and somewhere to gather.
That makes them especially good for wedding cocktail hours, corporate receptions and larger parties where you want the food to become part of the visual experience of the event itself.
Make It Yours
A grazing table can stand on its own or become the beginning of a progression:
Grazing table → passed tapas → live paella → dessert bar
Add more tapas. Add seafood. Build it around a particular menu. Make it intimate or make it enormous.
This is one of the places where we can really have fun.
Jamón Carving Stations
A Little Bit of Spain, Sliced to Order
For something especially memorable, add a live jamón carving station.
We can feature Jamón Serrano, Jamón Ibérico or Jamón Ibérico de Bellota, depending on the experience you want to create.
A whole jamón on the stand immediately changes the energy of a cocktail hour. Our carver slices each piece by hand as guests come up to the station, turning one of Spain’s great foods into an interactive part of the event.
It is delicious, but it is also theater.
Guests watch the knife move across the jamón, ask questions, come back for another slice and inevitably start talking about it.
Pair the station with a Spanish grazing table, cheeses, conservas, cava or passed tapas and you have a cocktail hour that feels like an experience rather than simply food waiting on a table.
Dessert
Save Room
Dinner should not be where the food story ends.
Our pastry chef can build full dessert bars filled with mini cakes, individual sweets and churros, giving guests the same sense of abundance and discovery they had during cocktail hour.
Churros are always a natural fit after paella, but dessert can go much further.
For weddings and more formal dinners, we can create plated desserts as part of the meal. For larger celebrations, a dessert bar lets guests try several things and keeps the party moving.
And if the wedding cake itself is the centerpiece, we are happy to work alongside it. We work with several great wedding cake professionals and can coordinate our dessert program around the cake rather than competing with it.
Bebidas
From Sangria to a Full Bar
Food and drinks should feel like they belong at the same party.
We can keep the beverage program wonderfully simple with sangria pitchers, Spanish wines, cava and beer, or take care of the entire bar.
Our beverage service can include:
- Sangria pitchers
- Beer & wine packages
- Cava and sparkling wine
- Signature cocktails
- Premium spirits
- Non-alcoholic beverages and mocktails
- Bartenders and service staff
- Bar supplies, glassware and rentals
- Full beverage service
We can build the package around the event, from a simple beer-and-wine program to a fully staffed bar.
Ñora can coordinate beverage service alongside the food, staffing, glassware and other event needs.
And, of course, there should probably be sangria.
One Menu. As Much Service as You Need.
The food is only one part of making an event work.
Some clients need us to arrive, cook an incredible meal and handle food service.
Others want one team coordinating the entire hospitality side of the event.
We can provide chefs, servers, bartenders, rentals, setup, cleanup, menu planning, beverage service and event coordination, building the level of service around the size, style and budget of the event.
That is how we can cater a backyard birthday one weekend and a 200-person wedding the next.
The format changes.
The standard does not.
The completed paella was a work of art, and delicious.
Let’s Feed Some People
Tell us your date, venue and guest count.
We will help you figure out the food, the style of service and how much support makes sense for your event.
Start by seeing if your date is available.
Serving the San Francisco Bay Area