I’m going to be honest with you here – we love brio. We have had a great experience each and every time we’ve been there and we recommend them to everyone we meet. Paul and his crew are amazing – they’re friendly in their service, innovative in their dishes and make the place a fun, relaxing place to be. To us, they are the best place in Rockford, IL to go for a great meal, a great drink and a fun night downtown.
When the topic of wedding caterers came up brio was my first choice, but I have to have full disclosure here and tell you that we considered some others.
Five Forks was one of the other front runners – until I actually spoke with them. The woman that I spoke with (and I’ll be nice here and not name names) could not have been any less helpful if she tried. After telling her the style of wedding we were planning, the number of guests that we expected and that we’d been to her restaurant and were familiar with her menu, she asked me the date of our wedding. After giving her this info, she informed me that she wasn’t sure they’d be available, as they were in the process of opening a second restaurant.
I told her, well, this is when we’re planning to have it and if it’s something you think you can do, please call me.
So then she asked me our budget.
Are you kidding? First off, if you can’t cater our wedding on the day we need you to, what difference does our budget make, right? So I told her I’d like to meet in person to discuss this and she told me to look at their menu on-line, familiarize myself with their menu and their prices and call her back.
SO, I informed her, ONCE AGAIN, that we’d been to her restaurant and were familiar with their menu – could they meet with us or not?
She told me that she would have to speak with the chef and call me back.
Annnnnnndddd…She never did.
Classy.
As often as we tell people to go to brio, we tell people not to bother with Five Forks. Oh, and we haven’t given them any of our money since.
And our budget? Yeah, that went brio.
We’d been to brio a number of times before actually calling them about catering our wedding, but we’d never actually met Paul, the owner, until he sat down with us. We were impressed immediately by his involvement from day one.
Paul went over the menu that we’d chosen from the ones that they had sent us. He asked a lot of questions and offered some advice, alterations and cocktail suggestions, and we walked away feeling like he truly “got” the style of wedding we were shooting for. When I met at a later time with Karen, she was exactly the same way – helpful, offering great suggestions and incredibly friendly.
Jimmy and I had to do some number crunching, but in the end, we knew, that the food had to be a special part of our big day – we both love great food and we really wanted it to be something that our friends and family loved.
And boy, did they love it.
The biggest hit of the evening was the duck with organic apple and brandy sauce – the plates of this dish disappeared as fast as they could bring it out. (and we were afraid that people would shy away from duck!)
The shrimp with Asian slaw on fried won tons went so quickly, that at one point they had to just bring them out in Chinese spoons instead of on won tons. And the shrimp and scallop ceviche that was supposed to be served in Chinese spoons & was, was a big, big hit.
From mussels with saffron rice, asparagus in phyllo, grilled veggies with herbs and olive oil, imported cheese and olives, rare tenderloin with beet-horseradish mousse and so, so much more, everything was just amazing.
And, if you’ve read our previous posts, you’ll know that the feel of the evening that we were searching for was more of an elegant, cocktail style reception. It was important to us that everyone kept moving around and mingling, as opposed to a more formal, stuffy, sit-down dinner. Paul and Karen walked me through Brigg’s Mansion at one of our meetings and had a lot of great ideas and made a number of fantastic suggestions. Food stations went in almost every room in the mansion and when Jim and I walked in the night of our wedding, the food displays were amazing. I’d love to say that they looked almost too beautiful to eat, but if you’ve ever eaten brio’s food (and if you haven’t you need to get there NOW), you’ll know that not eating anything was not an option!
We have never been to a wedding before where so many guests comment on & compliment the food as they did that night. Everyone was raving and each guest had their own favorite dish that they had to tell us about.
Jim and I were absolutely thrilled.
The service was amazing – every server and bartender was incredibly friendly and helpful. And efficient? Crazy efficient…that food came out so fast it was mind boggling. And our bartender engaged everyone, danced along with the music and made everyone there feel comfortable.
Oh – and if you recall, we decided that we weren’t having a wedding cake – the two of us are not huge cake eaters, so Paul had made some suggestions.
Yeah.
I’m not even sure if brio has a separate pastry chef or if the chefs just know their desserts, but holy cow.
Key lime & lemon tarts with fresh berries, caramel vanilla cream puffs and chocolate pecan praline petit fours…amazing. The dessert table was a huge hit – everything was so incredibly decadent that I can assure you, no one missed having cake that night. I’d recommend having some of these treats even if you are having a cake, because these desserts will blow you away.
From the day we called about helping with our big day to the thank you card we received a few weeks after the wedding, we could not have asked for a more perfect caterer.
Brio rocks.
And the roasted pumpkin seeds are DEE -licious.
We made our own dough & then loaded it up with a ton of fresh veggies and just a bit of sausage…looks good, huh?
They smell just absolutely divine and their color is amazing.
Is that beautiful or what?
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