Everyone wants the lower quote. You are planning an event, the numbers are adding up, and a caterer comes in cheaper than the rest. Easy call, right?
Not quite. The price on the quote and the price you actually pay are two different things. Cheap catering in Dubai has a habit of charging you the difference later, in ways that do not show up until the night itself.
This is not a pitch for spending more for the sake of it. It is about understanding what the low number is leaving out.
Why Cheap Catering Costs You More
Here are some reasons to keep an eye on:
1. A Low Quote Usually Means Something Is Missing
When one quote sits well below the rest, the food is not magically cheaper. Something has been taken out to hit that number.
Maybe it is the staff count, so service drags and guests wait. Maybe it is the ingredient grade, so the chicken is the cut nobody likes. Maybe it is the portion size, so the food runs out before half your guests have eaten. Often it is all three.
The dishes on the menu read the same on paper. What changes is everything you cannot see in a PDF. That is where the gap hides.
2. You Pay the Difference in Food That Runs Out
Nothing sinks an event faster than empty trays an hour in. It is the one thing guests always remember and always mention.
Cheap catering cuts portions to protect its margin. You booked for 100, the food was built for 70, and now you are watching people circle a bare table. There is no fixing it in the moment. The night is already shaped by it.
A caterer who quotes honestly builds for the headcount you actually gave them. That costs more up front. It costs a lot less than a room full of hungry guests.
3. You Pay the Difference in Food Safety
This is the part nobody likes to think about, and the most important. In Dubai’s climate, food safety is not optional, and cutting corners here is where cheap catering gets genuinely risky.
Proper cold chains, certified kitchens, and trained staff cost money. A quote that skips them is cheaper for a reason. One case of food poisoning at a corporate event does not just ruin the night. It follows the company name around.
Ask any caterer whether their kitchen is HACCP certified before you talk about price. If the answer is vague, the low quote just got a lot more expensive.
4. You Pay the Difference in Time and Stress
Cheap caterers are cheap on coordination too. You end up chasing confirmations, re-explaining the brief, and managing problems on the day that a good team would have handled quietly.
The hours you spend fixing it have a value. So does the stress of standing at your own event solving catering problems instead of hosting. A higher quote often buys back your evening. That is worth something the spreadsheet does not show.
It is the same logic behind every part of a well-run event, from the live cooking stations that need real staff to run, to the bar setup that falls apart without proper planning. You are not paying for food alone. You are paying for it to actually work.
What You Are Really Paying For
A fair quote is not the caterer charging more. It is the caterer charging for everything the cheap one quietly removed.
Enough staff to serve your guests properly. Portions built for your real headcount. Ingredients worth eating. A kitchen that meets safety rules. A team that runs the night so you do not have to. Whether that is private catering for an intimate dinner or full wedding catering for hundreds, the value is in the parts you cannot see on the menu.
The question is not which quote is lowest. It is which quote is honest about what the night actually needs.
Why Book The Art Of Hosting?
The Art Of Hosting has won Events Catering Team of the Year at the Caterer Middle East Awards five times, in 2020, 2021, 2023, 2024, and 2025. Our kitchen is HACCP certified under the Dubai Food Safety Department, so the safety side is handled, not hoped for.
We cater for teams at PwC, Sotheby’s, Snapchat, MBC Group, and Deliveroo, and every quote we send is built for the event you are actually throwing, not trimmed to look cheap and fixed later.
So before you sign off on the lowest number, tell us the date, the guest count, and the venue, and we will show you what a quote that holds up looks like.
Get in touch or message us on WhatsApp to start planning.
