about us

Our HISTORY

We are proud to be the first and original locally sourced caterer in the Washington DC area, with strong support of local farmers, bakers, cheesemakers, fisherfolk, and other producers. Our meat, vegetables, fruit, dairy, and bread are purchased from farmers within 175 miles of the city.

Established in 2007, Eat & Smile Catering continues to grow as a boutique business, working with clients to create unique events that meet their culinary and budgetary needs. Adding to this repertoire, the Eat & Smile team also hosts occasional supper club in our commercial kitchen space: The Bespoke Kitchen, where food-loving diners can find the freshest and best seasonal produce finessed into memorable dining experiences.

Learn more about Our Staff, or Contact Us to tell us about your event! We look forward to hearing from you.

local sourcing

We believe that local ingredients are more ecologically friendly, economically sustainable, better for you, and taste fantastic!

More and more, consumers are learning about where their food is coming from, and how it was raised or grown. This attention to locally-sourced items is very important to us, not only because every dollar spent with a local farmer and producer goes directly to them, circulating within our community many times and strengthening our local economy, but also because the ingredient that was picked locally and recently tastes so much better than the one picked a week ago in South America. We maintain a number of relationships with local producers — please take a look at Our Partners page to learn more about them!

going Green

Our business is founded upon the many principles of Local, including a strong core of environmental friendliness and sustainability. In addition to sourcing our ingredients locally whenever possible, we’ve incorporated the following practices into our business:

We buy direct from our producers whenever possible. Buying directly ensures that more income goes directly into the hands of the producers themselves, which is great for them as small businesses and also a great contribution to strengthening our local economies.
We avoid using disposables at our catered events, but when required or desired to do so, we use biodegradable and compostable cups, cutlery, and plates.
We compost all of our organic waste, as well as most of our serviceware, and are working with local business Fat Worm Compost to streamline and make more sustainable all of our waste streams. We also recycle our used fryer oil into biodiesel.
All of our electric power is sourced from renewable wind and solar energy sources via great local company Ethical Electric. For a few extra pennies, you too can switch from environmentally-degrading default energy to cleaner and renewable sources of energy — tell them we happily sent you!
We encourage our staff to carpool to events and provide incentives (featuring our local partners like Zeke's Coffee and District Doughnut) to do so!

Meet our Team

Our servers, chefs, Bartenders, & staff...

are like family to us! Rather than use a staffing company, we have our own roster of staff that have come to us over the years from clients, friends, and serious dedication to our mission. We are a collection of environmental enthusiasts, creative minds, returned Peace Corps Volunteers, foodies, and service-oriented folk! We are not only a team, but also a family, and we are proud of the exceptional work our team does time after time. We wholly embrace the diversity of our staff, are proud LGBTQ allies. To learn more about our full time staff members who will help you plan each step of your wedding, click here!

Questions?

Get in Touch

Staff

Oliver Friendly

Owner

Chef Oliver Friendly started his exploration of the kitchen as a child, devouring recipes and cookbooks, and moving on to create original meals and recipes as he grew older.

A graduate of L’Academie de Cuisine, Chef Oliver completed an externship at PS7s under the tutelage of Chef Peter Smith before then moving on to work at the recently opened Hook restaurant run by Chef and friend Barton Seaver. There, he further honed his cooking expertise, as well as his deep-seated support of sustainability as it connects to the kitchen.

A 4th generation Washingtonian, Chef Oliver moved on to independent efforts opening a local foods-oriented catering company in 2007 with the advent of Eat & Smile Catering. Here, he was able to focus on learning to do local on a budget, working on a range of events from dinner parties to weddings, all featuring local and seasonal ingredients from about a 175 mile radius of the city.

Jasmine Smith & Co

Our Wedding Planner Partners

As a military dependent, Jasmine grew up all over the world which explains her love for culture and experience. For the last few years, the DC area has been home for Jasmine, who is fueled by her natural ability to organize, collaborate and plan seamlessly. She has produced 25+ events and coordinated more than 200 weddings. She is proud of her color coded closet and admittedly is addicted to coffee and truffle fries, but not together.

Ja'el is from Richmond and is known on the team as the person most likely to embody Olivia Pope during a wedding. She started in the event industry first as a server and host and moved into the wedding scene as a coordinator several years ago. Ja'el has traveled to 11 different countries in one year and speaks 3 languages (English, Spanish, Italian). She frequently changes the lyrics to known songs and convinces herself that the artist got them wrong.