01Planning
Made for this table
Every menu begins with the couple — their tastes, traditions, priorities and vision. No preset tiers, no borrowed combinations.
Wedding Catering · North Carolina
The meal they’ll rememberafter the music stops.
Bespoke wedding menus, cooked fresh on-site and served with uncommon care throughout North Carolina.
As featured in
01 / 06
The promise
The meal is more than a course in the timeline. It is the moment everyone shares.
We design it with you, cook it fresh on-site whenever possible and serve it with a level of care your guests can feel.
Food without compromise. Hospitality guests can feel.
Neither one carries the evening alone.
The people
Owner & Chef
Chef Ben McManus
The standard begins in his kitchen.
Chef Ben McManus brings precision, creativity and event-scale discipline to every menu. His path runs from Mexican, Greek and Italian kitchens to fine dining, giving him a range that feels effortless at the table and exacting behind the scenes.
300 steaksOne exacting standard
450 guestsNo compromise in texture or temperature
Chef Ben McManusOwner & ChefHolly Tate KitchenSince 2008
25Years of professional cooking experience
17+
Years cooking for North Carolina celebrations
250+
Culinary possibilities in our working library
One
Entirely bespoke experience, built around you
The founder
Holly Tate
The point of view behind the name.
Formally trained in Paris and steeped in a lifetime of Southwestern flavor, Holly Tate brought an unusually broad culinary point of view to Winston-Salem. Before Holly Tate Fine Catering, she founded the Everyday Gourmet Cooking School—a place where technique, curiosity and the pleasure of gathering belonged at the same table.
The company grew from a conviction that still defines it: restaurant-quality food should be possible at celebration scale. Menus should begin with the people being served, ingredients should reflect the season and hospitality should feel personal rather than performed. Her standard of warmth, originality and care remains the standard the team is built to carry.
Warmth. Originality. Care.
- Paris
- Formal culinary training
- Winston-Salem
- Founder, Everyday Gourmet Cooking School
- Since 2008
- Holly Tate Fine Catering
Holly TateFounder · Culinary Educator
ParisFormal culinary trainingFounder of Everyday Gourmet Cooking School
From founder to service
The standard, carried forward.
From kitchen to pass to room to guest, the standard never changes.
The room
Hospitality should feel inevitable.
A need noticed early. A detail remembered. A celebration allowed to move without interruption.
- 01
- The Kitchen
- 02
- The Pass
- 03
- The Room
- 04
- The Guest
The service culture
Professional lives. Instinctive hospitality.
The roomService team · Holly Tate Fine Catering
Our service team is hand-selected from doctors’ offices, banks and corporate administrative careers — professionals who already understand discretion, efficiency and how to put people at ease.
They are trained to notice what guests need before anyone has to ask: remembering a dietary concern, helping an older guest with a plate and quietly making certain the couple has time to eat.
- 01
- Present without intrusion.
- 02
- Notice the need before it is voiced.
- 03
- Make attentive service feel effortless.
Discretion
Anticipation
Ease
Holly and John remain the first voice you hear. Heather Whitt and the operations team carry that culture through planning and the celebration itself.
The kitchen decides what reaches the table. The room decides how it feels.
You decide every detailThe experience
Three promises we keep at every celebration.
The experience, in three movements
01Planning
02Kitchen
03Room
02Kitchen
Cooked at its best
Prepared with precision in our commercial kitchen and cooked fresh on-site whenever possible, so a dish reaches the table at its intended temperature and texture.
03Room
Service with instinct
Warm, attentive hospitality that notices what guests need before they have to ask — including making certain the couple actually eats.
Praise
What stays with them.
- 5.0 on The Knot
- 73 reviews
- 5.0 on WeddingWire
- 79 reviews
A selection of experiences shared by clients.
The team communicated beautifully, guided us through planning and rentals and delivered both wonderful food and exceptionally professional service.
They cooked on-site despite the venue having no kitchen and handled every highly personal detail with calm, seamless service.
They accommodated complex allergies and dietary needs, remained composed through a rain delay and delivered food guests discussed long after the wedding.
Reviews group 1 of 4: Emily, Madeline M., Jessica C.
The Knot · WeddingWire · Zola
01 / 04
The possibilities
A menu as singular as the people around the table.
More than two hundred and fifty hors d’oeuvres, stations, salads, soups, entrées, sides, desserts and cocktails sit in our working library. They are starting points for a conversation, never a fixed combination.
Mini fried green tomato BLTsPassed, warm, first hour
A small selection. Your menu is written from scratch, around your tastes and the season.
An evening, not a tasting
The Wedding Preview Meal
Not a tasting.An evening around the table.
Rather than a plate of disconnected bites, you and a few guests sit down to a complete preview of the most important parts of your proposed menu.
Chef Ben and Heather join you, courses are discussed as they arrive, and details are refined in the room. It is a planning session that happens to be an evening of hospitality in its own right.
The evening, in three movements
01Sit down
02Discuss each course
03Refine the details
Press & recognition
A reputation built one unforgettable table at a time.
From distinguished editorial coverage to years of five-star client praise, Holly Tate Fine Catering is already part of the conversation. The next chapter deserves a wider audience.
Featured celebration
Heart of NC Weddings
A Winston-Salem wedding built around personal flavor
For Sarah and James, Holly Tate transformed favorite foods and personal details into a celebration designed specifically around the couple.
Editorial Feature · Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Read the Feature
The list
We accept a limited number of celebrations each year.
Not as a sales device — as the only way to protect staffing, food quality, planning attention and the standard we hold on the evening itself. When a date is spoken for, it is spoken for.
Check your date
The 1st step
Tell us what you want them to remember.
Share the date, place and feeling you are planning. We’ll personally review your celebration and respond within 24 hours.
Begin Your CelebrationPersonally reviewed · Response within 24 hours