Can you cater a garden party at a private home?

Yes. Garden parties are one of our most-loved bookings — from intimate 20-guest lunches to marquee events of 200+ across South West London gardens.

What menu suits a summer garden party?

Chilled starters, tandoori grill platters, salads, chaat, warm naan and a light dessert work beautifully outdoors, served buffet-style with professional warm holding.

Do you provide gazebos or marquees?

We provide serving gazebos for our cooking equipment. For guest seating marquees we can recommend trusted local partners.

What happens if the weather turns bad?

Our setups are weather-resistant and we always have wet-weather contingencies. We work closely with hosts on backup indoor plans where space allows.

Do you cook on site at outdoor events?

No. Everything is cooked on the morning of your event in our Food Hygiene Rating 5 kitchen in Richmond, then delivered hot in sealed copper chafers and held at temperature for service.

How does the self-serve buffet work outdoors?

We deliver, set up the buffet line with chafers, serving utensils, plates, cutlery and printed dish cards, then guests help themselves. We can staff the line or leave it as a drop-off, whichever suits your event.

Can you cater a festival or fair stall?

Yes. We are a long-standing Ham Fair stallholder and a returning partner at Hollyfield community events, serving street-food items in volume with queue flow planned around the organiser's site layout.

Is the food halal, and can you cover dietary requirements?

All our meat is halal-sourced. Vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free dishes are prepared and labelled in their own section with allergen cards on every dish.

How far do you travel for outdoor catering?

Free delivery within 10 miles of our Richmond kitchen at TW10 7NF, with a small supplement from 10 to 20 miles across Richmond, Kingston, Twickenham and south-west London.

All event types

Private Parties

Garden Party Catering in South West London

Garden party catering in Richmond and London: hot-held buffets delivered covered, sized for standing grazing, with a practical wet-weather plan.

Catering since 2008
Food Hygiene Rating 5
Halal-sourced
Richmond upon Thames

Jaflong Catering Team4 min read

Jaflong buffet line set up with covered trays ready for guests to serve themselves — Buffet lines set up and ready to serve

Copper chafing units keeping Indian curries hot at a Jaflong event service — Copper chafing units keep every dish hot

Jaflong catering staff serving guests from a buffet at an event — Our own team serving on the day

Garden party catering in London and Richmond

Garden parties are outdoor in intention and indoor in contingency. The menu that works is one that does not depend on the weather holding: food delivered hot and covered, served from a shaded table, and equally happy moved inside at short notice. That is how we cater them — everything cooked at our Richmond kitchen and transported in chafing units, with no live cooking on site.

Jaflong Tandoori Catering is at 16 Ashburnham Road, Richmond TW10 7NF and holds a 5-star Food Standards Agency hygiene rating.

Setting up outdoors

Shade first. A buffet in direct summer sun shortens the safe holding window; we ask for a shaded or covered table run at booking.
Table space. Roughly three metres of run serves up to about 80 guests comfortably.
Access. Tell us if the garden is reached through the house or a side gate so the delivery is planned, not improvised.
A wet-weather plan. Agree an indoor table position in advance; moving a set buffet mid-service is the one thing that genuinely disrupts a garden party.

Menus that suit an outdoor spread

Grazing items — samosas, bhajis, tikka skewers, chutneys and salads — are the backbone of a garden party, with two or three hot mains, rice and breads behind them. Guests eat standing and return several times, so quantity planning differs from a seated meal; we size accordingly rather than assuming one plate each.

Sourcing and dietary needs

Meat and poultry are halal-sourced with traceable supplier documentation; we are not HMC-certified. Vegetarian and vegan dishes are cooked separately, gluten-free items are labelled, and the catering kitchen does not use peanuts or tree nuts.

Cost and delivery

Bronze £25, Silver £35, Gold £45 and Platinum £60 per head, with minimum guest numbers per package. Delivery is free within ten miles of TW10 7NF and quoted from ten to twenty miles; collection is available by prior arrangement.

Garden party catering questions

What happens if it rains?

Food is unaffected — it arrives hot and covered. Agree an indoor table position in advance so the buffet can move in one go.

Do you cook on site or bring a grill?

No. All cooking happens at our Richmond kitchen; food arrives hot in chafing units.

How much table space do you need?

About three metres for up to 80 guests, ideally shaded.

Talk to us about your event

Tell us the date, guest count and venue — we reply with a tailored quote, usually the same day.

Quick Links

Why Choose Jaflong?

✓ Catering since 2008
✓ Around 500 events catered
✓ Halal-Sourced
✓ Food Hygiene Rating 5
✓ 4.7★ on Google Reviews

How the service runs

Four steps, from our kitchen to your guests' plates

Tap through each stage to see exactly what we handle on the day.

Copper chafing dishes being loaded in the Jaflong Richmond kitchen on the morning of an event

Morning of your event

Cooked fresh in our Richmond kitchen

Curries, biryani and sides are cooked from scratch on the day in our Food Hygiene Rating 5 kitchen. Halal-sourced meat, and vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free dishes prepared separately.

Fresh on the day, never reheated stock
Halal-sourced meat
Separate prep for dietary dishes

Plan your buffet

Our set-up, photographed

What your buffet actually looks like

Copper chafers, brass burners, porcelain plates and labelled dish cards — the same service kit we bring to garden parties, community halls and outdoor events across Richmond upon Thames.

How outdoor catering works

Cooked in Richmond, delivered hot, served the way your day runs

Outdoor events live or die on logistics. This is exactly what a Jaflong drop-off and self-serve buffet looks like from kitchen to last plate — photographed at real events across Richmond upon Thames and south-west London.

01
We cook in our Richmond kitchen
Every curry, biryani and street-food item is prepared in our Food Hygiene Rating 5 kitchen on the morning of your event, then packed hot into sealed copper chafers and insulated boxes.
02
We deliver, set up and hold it hot
Our team arrives 3–4 hours before service, dresses the tables, sets the chafers and fuel, labels every dish and checks holding temperatures — then clears down afterwards.
03
Your guests help themselves
A self-serve buffet keeps queues moving at outdoor parties and fairs — guests take what they want, go back for seconds, and you stay with your guests instead of running the food.

Vegan and dairy-free Indian canapés, samosas, pakoras and pani puri arranged on wooden boards at a Jaflong event

Every guest catered for, on the same table

Vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free dishes are prepared separately and set out in their own labelled section of the buffet, so nobody has to ask. All meat is halal-sourced.

Get a tailored quote See more event photos

Outdoor events we've catered

Proof from the field, not the brochure

Ham Fair, Richmond
Community fair · street-food stall
A full day of high-volume street-food service on the green — chicken tikka wraps, chaat cups and samosas served from our stall with queue flow planned around the organiser's site layout.
Quote a festival stall
Corporate summer party, Richmond upon Thames
120 guests · drop-off buffet
Cooked in the morning, delivered and set up in the marquee for a 1pm service. Vegan and gluten-free dishes labelled in their own section, cleared down the same evening.
Quote a corporate party
Hollyfield community event, Kingston
Community partnership · outdoor buffet
Self-serve buffet for a mixed-age community crowd, sized so late arrivals still ate well, with all-halal meat and clear allergen cards on every dish.
Quote a community event
Richmond Park area team day
60 guests · drop-off with equipment
A lunchtime drop-off for an outdoor team day: hot mains held in copper chafers, plates, cutlery and napkins supplied, collection arranged for the following morning.
Quote a team day
School summer fair, Surbiton
PTA fundraiser · high-volume service
Biryani and pilau served in volume through a two-hour peak, priced per head so the PTA could forecast the fundraising margin before the day.
Quote a school fair

The food arrived hot, the buffet looked beautiful and the team set everything up without us lifting a finger. Guests were still talking about the biryani weeks later.
Jennifer Scott
Corporate summer party, Richmond
We've used Jaflong for our outdoor events three years running. Their ability to manage huge queues without losing quality is unmatched.
Mark Thompson
Community event organiser, Kingston

4.7★ Google rating
Reviews from Richmond, Kingston & Twickenham clients
Food Hygiene Rating 5
FSA-inspected Richmond kitchen, TW10 7NF
Halal-sourced & allergen-labelled
Every dish labelled, allergens listed on the day
Written quote within 4 hours
Weekdays 9am–6pm, same-day on most enquiries

Hot on arrival, beautifully set up and cleared down without us asking. Easily the most professional caterer we've booked in Richmond.

Jennifer ScottCorporate summer party, Richmond

Food stalls vs live cooking stations

These two formats are often described interchangeably online, and they are not the same thing. Jaflong runs served food stalls at festivals and outdoor events. We do not run live cooking stations, so it is worth knowing exactly what arrives on the day before you book.

What we do provide — served food stalls

Branded gazebo stalls with curry pots, biryani boxes and wrap counters
Food cooked in our Richmond kitchen, held hot and served to order at the stall
High throughput queues — designed for 500 to 3,000+ covers across a festival day
Trestle tables, covers, chafing units, fuel, utensils, setup and clear-down included
Serving staff can be arranged on request — please ask when you enquire

What we do not provide

Live cooking stations or chef theatre in front of guests
Live tandoor, tawa or grill stations on the pitch
Plated fine-dining or silver service
Bar or bartender service

If your brief genuinely needs cooking performed in front of guests, tell us at enquiry stage — we would rather say so upfront than under-deliver on the day.