About Jennifer Naylor Catering & Special Events
Jennifer Naylor, Inc. is a chef-owned and operated full service catering and event planning company. As Malibu’s premier caterer, currently expanding services throughout Los Angeles and Santa Barbara Counties, Jennifer brings remarkable dedication, inventive cuisine and more than two decades of fine dining restaurant experience to the planning of your unique and memorable event.
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The Jennifer Naylor Catering team will provide guidance throughout the event planning process, including coordination of venues (Jennifer is now working with many exclusive new venues in Malibu), entertainment, rental needs, event and floral designers and a professionally-trained service staff. However, it is our unrivaled expertise in offering inspired and extraordinary food that sets us apart. First and foremost, great care is taken to collaborate with you in the creation of a tailor-made menu designed to show off the finest ingredients for your occasion. A devoted farmer's market shopper both for the freshness and for the organic heirloom varieties available, Jennifer has long believed the best tasting food is created from ingredients harvested in season by local ranchers from sustainable farms. She maintains that the simple secret to a successful party is fresh food, good wine, friends and family.
About Jennifer Naylor
A native Californian, Jennifer followed in her family’s footsteps to become the third generation in the restaurant business. Her grandfather founded the Tiny Naylor's chain, California's original family-style restaurants and drive-ins. Her father, Biff Naylor also began at a young age under his father and currently carries on the family tradition as owner and operator of Du-par’srestaurants.
Jennifer entered the restaurant business in the 1980’s, first serving successive apprenticeships with Los Angeles chefs Roland Gibert, Mary Sue Miliken and Susan Feniger. In 1990, Jennifer joined the restaurant team of Wolfgang Puck ultimately running his flagship restaurant Granita in Malibu.
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In1996, Puck sent Naylor to travel through Italy for a year long
immersion in Italian cuisine. First she worked in the heart of Umbria with Gianfranco Vissani at his Michelin two-star restaurant Vissani, and then at Dal Pescatore in Canneto sull’Oglio with Nadia Santini, the only Michelin three-star rated woman chef in all of Italy. It was there that she was inspired by the Italian chefs’ creative and innovative use of traditional regional products, reduced to their simplest and purest form.
In 2005, Naylor launched her first solo venture, Jennifer Naylor Catering and Special Events. She has created a niche in which she continues to explore her culinary passions through her craft and to bring her inventive cuisine with a very personal style to her clients.
Wolfgang Puck
Julia Child
Nadia Santini
