Is a buffet cheaper than a set menu?

Usually, but not always, and not for the reason people assume. A buffet needs fewer service staff and less crockery per guest, which is where the saving comes from — but it also produces more food waste, so the food cost per head can be higher. Compare fully broken-down quotes rather than the headline number.

How many buffet lines do I need?

Ask your caterer to quote lines against your guest count rather than accepting a single line by default. One long line for a large wedding creates queues and cooling food; two identical shorter lines running in parallel solve both problems at once.

Do live cooking stations need a generator?

Often, yes. Stations need power or gas, and many Lebanese venues — particularly outdoor and mountain sites — cannot support several at once without a generator. Establish what the venue supplies before the menu is designed, and confirm in writing who pays for any generator.

Can you serve a full Lebanese mezze as a plated set menu?

Not really. A mezze spread is defined by having many dishes on the table at once, which plating cannot reproduce. Events that want both usually run a hybrid: mezze on the table or on a buffet, with plated or station-cooked mains.

Buffet, Set Menu or Live Stations

Updated 2026-09-15 · 7 min

Service style is decided early and is hard to reverse, because it drives the staffing plan, the rental list and the shape of the room. It is also the decision most couples make on instinct rather than on what their venue can support.

The buffet

The buffet is the default at Lebanese events for a reason: it handles breadth. A Lebanese menu wants twenty-plus mezze dishes on the table at once, and no plated service can deliver that without an impossible number of staff.

It is also the most forgiving of an inexact guest count, and it lets guests eat as much or as little as they want — which matters at a wedding where the mezze alone can fill people before the grills arrive.

Its weaknesses are queueing and temperature. A single buffet line for three hundred guests creates a twenty-minute queue and hot food that has been sitting. The fix is duplicate lines — two identical shorter runs rather than one long one — and it is worth insisting on.

The set menu

A plated set menu gives the most control: precise portions, precise timing, no queueing, and a room that stays seated so speeches and the first dance land where you planned them. It photographs well and it wastes less food.

It is also the most staff-intensive per guest, and it is the least Lebanese. A set menu cannot carry a full mezze spread, so most Lebanese events that go plated use a hybrid — mezze on the table, mains plated — rather than a full Western-style three courses.

Choose it when the guest count is moderate, the venue has a proper kitchen or a sheltered finishing area, and the evening has a formal structure you need to protect.

Live stations

Live stations are where most Lebanese catering has moved, and the reasons are practical rather than fashionable. Food cooked three metres from the guest arrives hotter and fresher than anything that crossed the venue. Guests circulate instead of queueing at one point. And the cooking itself is entertainment during the long stretch of an evening that would otherwise be dead time.

Typical stations: grills, kharouf carving, pasta finished to order, kebbeh or manakish, shawarma, and at the larger end seafood or sushi. They are usually combined with a mezze buffet rather than replacing it.

The constraint is infrastructure. Stations need power or gas, ventilation, and space that is accessible to guests but safe. A venue with one weak supply and no generator will not support four of them, and this is the thing to establish before the menu is designed rather than after.

How the three compare

Roughly, and allowing for wide variation between caterers and venues:

Kitchen staff: stations highest, buffet lowest. Service staff: set menu highest, stations lowest.
Rental load: set menu highest — more crockery, more cutlery, more linen per guest.
Tolerance of a wrong guest count: buffet best, set menu worst.
Food waste: set menu lowest, buffet highest.
Timing control: set menu best; stations spread the meal out, which is usually what a wedding wants.
Menu breadth: buffet and stations carry a full Lebanese spread; a set menu cannot.

The hybrid almost everyone actually books

In practice the common format at a Lebanese wedding is all three at once: mezze laid on the tables or on a buffet line, grills and a carving station cooking live, and perhaps one plated element such as the dessert.

This is not indecision. It uses each format where it is strongest — breadth from the buffet, heat from the stations, control from the plated course — and it is what most experienced Lebanese caterers will propose if you describe the evening rather than the format.

Describe your evening to the caterer: guest count, venue, what time people arrive, when the speeches are, how late it runs. A caterer who leads with a format before asking those questions is selling you their default, not designing your event.

Questions that settle the choice

Five questions usually resolve it without a long debate.

What power and gas does the venue actually have, and is a generator included?
How many buffet lines are in the quote for your guest count?
How many service staff, and how many kitchen staff, for each option?
How does each option change the rental bill?
If the guest count moves by ten per cent in either direction, what happens to the price?

Common questions

Is a buffet cheaper than a set menu?: Usually, but not always, and not for the reason people assume. A buffet needs fewer service staff and less crockery per guest, which is where the saving comes from — but it also produces more food waste, so the food cost per head can be higher. Compare fully broken-down quotes rather than the headline number.
How many buffet lines do I need?: Ask your caterer to quote lines against your guest count rather than accepting a single line by default. One long line for a large wedding creates queues and cooling food; two identical shorter lines running in parallel solve both problems at once.
Do live cooking stations need a generator?: Often, yes. Stations need power or gas, and many Lebanese venues — particularly outdoor and mountain sites — cannot support several at once without a generator. Establish what the venue supplies before the menu is designed, and confirm in writing who pays for any generator.
Can you serve a full Lebanese mezze as a plated set menu?: Not really. A mezze spread is defined by having many dishes on the table at once, which plating cannot reproduce. Events that want both usually run a hybrid: mezze on the table or on a buffet, with plated or station-cooked mains.