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The View. The Food. The Location.

The Nyack Seaport and Lena’s Catering offer views and dishes delicious and sublime.

One of a Kind Dishes | Off-Premise Delights | Personalizing Your Wedding
Work on the Solution, Forget the Problem | Contact

“Off-premise we can do anything,” say the chefs at The Nyack Seaport and Lena's Catering. “The smallest event we’ve done to date was for two people — and the largest event was for 7,000!”

The Nyack Seaport includes a restaurant overlooking the Hudson River, an on-premise catering hall which seats up to 240, plus the off-premise facilities of Lena’s Catering.

Choose Your Wedding Reception Team
When choosing your reception facility, it is most important that you are comfortable with the people. “We also say to our brides, ‘Whether or not we do your event, if you have any questions, call us.’ We want them to know we can help.”

They also help you evaluate different services. “Sometimes a catering hall may say, ‘We have 21 stations at the cocktail hour.’ But what they really have is 21 different items.

“To us, a station is a buffet. It has its own décor and its own cuisine. It may be flavors from a certain area of the world or a certain food, such as pastas, a roast, or a quesadilla. It could be our Moroccan station, our vegetarian station, or our mashed potato station.”

They create many intriguing stations. The chef at a pasta station may be making penne pasta with a pomadora sauce. At another, a chef might be preparing crépes filled with mascarponi cheese and artichoke hearts.

“In the other corner of the room there may be a chef slicing turkey and serving it with a focaccia crust stuffing, cranberry relish, and gravy. At another station there may be a chef grilling a flank steak and serving it over a nappa salad with a hosein sauce and black sesame.

“You have to be specific, and you have to know what you are getting.”


One of a Kind Dishes
“Our food has contributed most to our reputation. But our location, our scenic views, and our service are also great. Our job is to figure out what the bride wants when she gets here.

“We don’t really have a menu. If you feel you can work with us, we give you samples of our dishes so we can get your comments and reactions.

“But you’re not going to make your decision the first time you come here. You want to leave with descriptive literature so we have created an interesting printed menu that we can personalize for you.”

Over the years he has done everything from Greek cold cherry soup to a Sri Lanken wedding. “We had the Sri Lanken grandmother come into the kitchen a month before to show us all the ingredients and all the steps we needed to create her deviled shrimp and rice dishes — for the 300 people we were serving.”

Whatever your heritage, they will do a tasting based, in part, on the foods of your native land. “Whenever there are ethnic recipes, like there were with this Sri Lanken wedding, we ask, ‘Do you want it in a very authentic manner, or do you want us to reproduce it so it is palatable for all your guests?’

“That’s the extra step our company is based on. we don’t want to sell you filet mignon and lobster if you only have a budget for chicken, but we want to make that chicken the best possible!”

They had to be especially inventive with a past year’s Christmas parties. “The budgets weren’t there because of the economy. So did weI start whipping out the frozen hors d’oeuvres? Never! We had to be more creative.”

A designer clothing company wanted to do an exciting event to unveil their latest line. “So we rented big coffee mugs, did different flavored hot chocolates, and served a snack with each drink.”

They had hot cocoa with a splash of Godiva chocolate liqueur, accompanied by roasted marshmallow skewers; warm apple jack cider spiked with Jack Daniel’s and a cinnamon almond biscotti; and minted Kaluha coffee with black currant scone sticks. “It was like having an hors d’oeuvre with each beverage.

“Most brides and grooms are watching their budget as well. But we can be just as creative with chicken as we can be with filet mignon or lobster.”


Off-Premise Delights (& Challenges)
When you choose on-premise, the first thing to do is clarify the number of guests. “We have clients who come here and love the place, but they have more guests than we can accommodate.

“Then we have to know the budget. Generally, if they want the same wedding produced off-premise, it’s going to probably cost almost twice as much.

“Before you can even think of off-premise, is the higher budget acceptable? You have to be a little dazzled with the off-premise site to think so.”

Once you see the location, the creative process begins. “What can we do in this facility? No ovens? Okay, we can do cappellini and shrimp at room temperature as an appetizer. Do we have gas ranges? Okay, we’re doing the goat cheese soufflé. Can we bring in a gas stove? Can we put a barbecue right outside the kitchen? Can we bring in gas grills to do grilled filet of beef?”

This creativity and attention to detail has not gone unnoticed. “We’ve always done about two off-premise events a year in Manhattan, but this past December we had seven events in Manhattan alone, and all were over 250 people.”

More Unique Dishes, Elegantly Served
One of their signature appetizers is risotto. “We’re going to come to your off-site premise with a bag of raw rice over our shoulder, walk into that kitchen, and make it from scratch right there.”

Two risotto favorites are a wild mushroom and shrimp risotto drizzled with black truffle oil, and an artichoke risotto with parmesan dust. Another signature dish is gnocchi. “We usually do a trio, so we could do spinach and ricotta malfati with roasted sweet potato and sage gnocchi. Then you can add something simple, like white potato gnocchi with tomato sauce or pesto.”

Special service is also a signature feature. For example, at the end of the reception, before the wedding cake is served, tuxedo-clad waiters will pass out miniature desserts on the dance floor, in the smoking area, by the bar, and to an elderly aunt who hasn’t moved all night from her chair. “Then we serve the coffee.”

Personalizing Your Wedding
“When a bride first walks in, we want to treat her as a guest,” says Helen Saraiva. “I want to show you how your guests feel, from the ceremony to the cocktails and reception. So when we sit down to talk, you feel like you’ve been through the whole party.”

Like the chefs, she wants to hear how you envision your wedding. “One great thing about The Nyack Seaport and Lena’s Catering is that as an off-premise caterer with our on-site venue, we can customize each menu individually.

“Every menu we do is based on your budget and your style,” says Helen. “If a couple says, ‘I love this room, but I only have a certain amount to spend per person,’ I’ll say, ‘Let’s sit down and pick what will fit into that budget.’ If you have a low budget, I’ll say, ‘You may not be able to do a sit-down dinner on a Saturday night, but we can do a fabulous brunch for you on a Sunday afternoon.’ We always do something different and unique.

“One time I was with a bride and groom and the groom was very quiet, so I asked, ‘Is there something you would like?’ He said he wanted milk and brownies, but his fiancée said, ‘We’re not serving our guests brownies.’

“I said, ‘No, but we can do a chocolate gateau, which is a very dense chocolate cake, with an ice cream bar.’ He was very happy. When he first arrived in the bridal suite there also was a big glass of milk and brownies.”

Work On The Solution, Forget About The Problem
In off-premise catering, there are many elements you cannot anticipate. “One time we were doing a wedding where the floral person just drove off with the boutonnieres," says Helen. "He went across the bridge, and my assistants were saying, ‘What do we do?’

“The ceremony was starting in seven minutes, so I told my assistants to go down to the tent, pull the same color roses from the arrangements, and get out my sewing kit.” They made boutonnieres on the spot.

“You have to work on solutions and forget about the problem. Don’t even talk about the problem. If you get caught up in it, you’re never going to get beyond it.

“The other day one of our linen distributors got stuck on the George Washington Bridge. We were doing another event near the Jacob Javits Center in New York, so we got on the phone and called them to get the linens.

“You have only a few minutes. You don’t talk about it, you just work on the solution. Make a phone call. Jump on the Internet. One couple who was coming to a wedding here pulled up, shut both their car doors in the valet parking lot, and realized they left their keys inside. They were in panic mode. I said, ‘Please go to the cocktail hour, enjoy yourself.’

“The man couldn’t remember if he had 24-hour service. On the Internet I found a Subaru dealer open in California, got the telephone number, and discovered that they had roadside assistance.” They arrived within an hour to get the keys out.

“If you panic, it’s over. If the oven breaks and we’re off-premise, the chef will turn the gas off, throw sternos in, and heat it up. He adapts to problems incredibly well. You just have to. You never know what you’re going to run into. I have a survival kit that I carry with me that has everything: Tylenol, paper clips, a hammer, nails, glue, tape, and ear plugs.

“We also work very well with planners. They feel comfortable and confident in hiring us as a caterer because we’re on top of what we need to do.

“When brides come to me here on- site and they don’t have a planner, we may recommend one for them. If they really want to be involved in the details, then we will assist and guide them, introducing them to select vendors we’ve worked with, and helping them with their invitations, favors, and floral arrangements.”

At the Seaport, they pride themselves on being a team. “We are not driven by commission, where one person doesn’t want to assist the other person’s client.

“We all work together. If I’m not here and somebody calls, they can speak to anyone else. Everybody is kept abreast of every event we’re doing. It’s a full team approach.”

This teamwork leads to more creative approaches. “We can transform a tennis court into a beautiful lavish dining room for 150 people, for example. So when I walk into an empty loft or an empty room, I know we can turn it into magic.”