About us

You are hiring a chef,
not a catering company

Pig & Pickle Catering is Adam Skinner and a small team he trained himself. He quotes your event, writes your menu, lights the fire on the morning of it and is the one carving at seven in the evening. That is the whole proposition.

See what we cook 07946 773421

30 yrs: Behind the pass
25–800: Guests catered
6: Counties covered
1: Chef, every job

The business

Small on purpose, and staying that way

Most catering companies grow by adding vans, then staff, then a sales office, and somewhere in that sequence the person who cooks stops being the person you spoke to. We have deliberately not done that. Pig & Pickle Catering takes the number of events it can cook properly in a season and turns down the rest.

The practical effect is that the standard does not move. There is no second team you might get instead, no agency staff filling a gap in August, and no situation in which your event is the one nobody senior turns up to. If Adam has taken your booking, Adam is the one who cooks it.

It also means the answers you get are direct. Ask what something costs and you get a number. Ask whether 40 guests justifies a whole hog and you will be told no, along with what to do instead. That is easier to do when there is no monthly target sitting behind the conversation.

We are based in Cambridge, in Cambridgeshire, and cover roughly 60 miles in every direction from there — the counties are listed here.

Adam Skinner and the Pig & Pickle Catering team setting up an outdoor kitchen before service

Based in

Cambridge, Cambridgeshire

Covering 6 counties

The chef

30 years, one trade

Not a career changer with a smoker and a website. This is the only job Adam has ever had.

1
Mid 1990s
Into a professional kitchen
Adam started where most chefs of his generation did: the bottom of a busy restaurant brigade, learning butchery, sauce work and service under people who did not explain things twice.
2
The 2000s
Restaurant years
A decade and a half of section work and then running kitchens — the part of a career that teaches you how to cost a dish, hold a standard through a Saturday night and read a room before it complains.
3
The 2010s
Outdoors, on purpose
The move to outside catering was a choice rather than a fallback. Whole animals, open grills and cooking in front of the people eating turned out to be the part of the trade Adam actually wanted to do all day.
4
Today
Pig & Pickle Catering
A small, deliberately small, outside catering business working out of Cambridge. Hog roasts, barbeques and buffets from 25 to 800 guests, with Adam on site for every event he quotes.

Adam Skinner in a restaurant kitchen earlier in his career, holding two whole cod — Adam fifteen years ago — restaurant kitchen, fish delivery in.

Adam Skinner working a carvery service earlier in his career — Also fifteen years ago, on the carvery.

Adam Skinner today, in front of his hog roast set-up — Today, in front of his own fire.

How we work

Six things we do the same way every time

Not values in the corporate sense — just the operating decisions that shape what turns up at your event.

The chef quotes the job

Your enquiry does not go to a sales team. Adam reads it, works out whether it is realistic and tells you if it is not. That is why quotes here occasionally talk you out of something.

Prep is done as late as it can be

Bread cut late, salads dressed at the last moment, hot food held properly rather than early. Almost everything disappointing about event catering is a timing decision made for the caterer's convenience.

The team does not rotate

The same handful of people work every job. They know how Adam plates, where the equipment lives and what to do when a marquee floods — because they have done it before, together.

Nothing is subcontracted quietly

If we ever needed a second kitchen or extra staff for a very large event, you would be told who and why before you booked, not on the day.

We say no when it is right to

Wrong date, wrong site, wrong menu for your numbers, or a budget that cannot produce something we would be happy to serve — we will say so and, where we can, point you somewhere better.

Waste is our problem, not yours

Everything we bring leaves with us, including the rubbish. Nobody should be carrying bin bags out of a village hall at midnight after their own party.

Credentials

The paperwork your venue will ask for

Village halls, licensed venues and wedding barns almost always want documentation before they will let a caterer on site. Ours is current and goes out with your invoice as standard.

Insurance and hygiene questions answered

Public liability insurance
Held and current — certificate on request
Food hygiene certification
Level 2 for all staff, kept in date
Local authority registration
Registered food business — details on request
Risk assessment & method statement
Written for outdoor cooking with LPG, not copied from a restaurant template
HACCP food safety plan
In place and available to venues on request
Sent to your venue directly
Give us their email and we forward everything a month ahead

Talk to Adam

Tell him what you had in mind

Most events start with a phone call and a rough idea. Bring the date, the numbers and the venue, and he will tell you what is realistic.

Get in touch Build a quote instead

Adam Skinner answers his own phone — no call centre, no sales team.

You are hiring a chef,not a catering company