Capri Express caters Italian out of Burr Ridge, southwest of Chicago, and
its catering menu runs on one unit: the pan. You pick how many pans and you
pick which protein goes in them. Every other choice on the menu, the sauce,
the pasta shape, the preparation, costs nothing. Price a real order against
that menu and the pattern shows up fast. Splitting one dish into two is
free.
A family kitchen that sends its dining room food out by the pan
The Capri story starts in 1985, when the founder the family still calls
Mama Capri opened the original Ristorante. A Burr Ridge dining room followed
in 2002, built to put the same family recipes in a full-service room. Capri
Express is the other half of that operation, the quick-service and catering
side that runs pickup, delivery and office orders from
its own kitchen on Burr Ridge Parkway.
Most restaurants bolt a catering menu onto a dining room and hand you a
thinner version of the same list. Capri Express runs catering as its own
operation, which shows up in what survives onto the catering menu. Veal,
lobster tail and sea bass all made it, and they arrive in a pan sized for a
conference table rather than on a plate. You can browse the
Italian catering directory and find
plenty of kitchens that cook at that level, and plenty that cater at that
volume. The overlap is thin.
The pan is the only unit you have to think about
Every hot section of the catering menu prices two ways, half pan and full
pan, and the serving spec gets reprinted at the top of each one. A half pan
is built for six to eight people. A full pan is built for twelve to fifteen.
Appetizers, salads, pasta, the chicken and veal entrees, the specialty
dishes, the sides and the desserts all run on that same pair of numbers.
Sandwiches and panini go by the pan too, so even the handheld food comes
out as a tray to serve from rather than a stack of boxes. A pan of veal cutlet
panini is not a format most Italian caterers offer. If your team wants individual
portions rather than a served line, our guide to
boxed lunches against
buffets covers when each one earns its keep, and
the party tray
guide covers sizing a cold spread.
A full pan never costs more than two halves
Compare each full pan against its own half pan, line by line down the
menu. On nearly every line the full pan is priced at exactly twice the half.
On the handful where it differs, the full pan comes in a little under twice.
Not one line on the menu charges more than double.
Two half pans of two different dishes therefore land at the same place as
one full pan of one dish. The half pans feed six to eight apiece, so
together they cover twelve to sixteen, which brackets what the single full pan
covers. You get a second dish, a second sauce and a hedge against the person
who does not eat the first thing, and the arithmetic does not punish you for
any of it.
So stop ordering full pans by default. For a room of twelve to fifteen,
two half pans beat one full pan on every axis that matters to the people
eating. Order the full pan when you want fifteen servings of one dish, which
happens more often for lasagna at a
board meeting than for anything
else on the list.
Pasta is one price for any shape and any sauce
The pasta section prices as a single pan and then opens up. Pick a shape
from a list that runs from spaghetti and penne through rigatoni, square
noodles, baby shells, gnocchi, cavatelli, tortellini and ravioli. Pick a sauce
from a list that runs vodka, olio, Romano, alfredo, quattro formaggio,
diavolo, basilico, Bolognese and marinara. The pan costs the pan price
whichever pair you land on.
Multiply those two lists and the combinations run into the dozens on a
single line of the menu. That fixes the usual pasta problem in an office
order, which is that the second pan looks like an upcharge and gets cut. Here
you can put two pans on the table that share nothing, a cream sauce and a red
sauce, a filled shape and a tube, at the price of two pans of the same
thing. Teams that like the format enough to run it as a station will find
the pasta bar
setup useful.
A separate house-pasta section handles the dishes where the shape and the
sauce are the point rather than a choice. Rigatoni in vodka sauce, baked ziti,
gnocchi Romano, tortellini paesano with prosciutto and peas in alfredo,
stuffed shells, arrabiata with prosciutto. Those come as themselves, at the
same pan pricing.
The preparation is free, the protein sets the price
The chicken and veal section is where this menu departs from the norm. It
does not list a dozen chicken dishes at a dozen prices. It lists chicken at
one price, veal at one price, and then hands you the same long roster of
preparations for either: Pompei, Marsala, Vesuvio, Piccata, Limone,
Oreganato, Parmesan, Francese, cutlet, Saltimbocca, Genovese, Calabrisella
and a few house names you will not find anywhere else, including one called
Forget About It.
The marketplace listing tells the same story from the other direction.
Chicken Parmesan, Chicken Limone, Chicken Francese, Chicken Vesuvio, Chicken
Marsala, Chicken Pompeii, Chicken Piccata, Chicken Cutlet, Chicken Forget
About It and Chicken Saltimbocca all sit at one identical price, each one
spec’d to serve six. The veal entrees do the same at their own number.
That takes a whole category of second guessing off whoever places the
order. You never have to weigh one preparation against another to protect a
budget. Pick the protein tier, then pick the preparation the room will
like.
The veal tier, and when it earns the step up
Veal runs a little under twice chicken, and the gap holds at both pan
sizes. Picking between those two tiers is the one choice on this menu that
moves the bill much.
Chicken carries the everyday orders. It handles the working lunch, the
recurring team meal, the training day. Veal is what you reach for when the
meal itself is doing work: a
client appreciation
dinner, a partner visit, an evening board session where the food is
supposed to register. One veal pan alongside two chicken pans reads as
generous without pricing the order like a veal order, and it is a cheaper way
to raise the ceiling than moving the whole table up a tier. Seafood sits
above both, and the sea bass runs at market, so treat that one as a
conversation rather than a line item.
Where the doubling stops: the cold platters
The vegetable, cheese and antipasto platters do not follow the pan rule.
They are sold small and large rather than half and full, and on two of the
three the large steps up well under double. The hot pans and the cold
platters therefore reward opposite behavior. On a pan, splitting is free and
sizing up buys you nothing. On a platter, sizing up is the discount and
splitting costs you.
Order accordingly: take the large platter and take the half pans. The
antipasto tray is the one platter that prices like a pan, and it is also the
one built on imported cured meats and cheeses rather than raw vegetables,
which is a fair trade for the step up.
The salads run on pan pricing and reward the same splitting logic. The list
covers house, Caesar, Greek, arugula with shaved parmigiano, a caprese, a
prosciutto and gorgonzola salad in raspberry vinaigrette, an antipasto salad,
and a chopped salad built on yesterday’s bread. Proteins bolt on as their own
line, and they scale with the pan the same way everything else does. Dressing
comes on the side, which is what you want when a salad has to survive a drive
from the southwest suburbs.
What Capri Express sends to an office
The catering list is broader than the pasta-and-chicken core suggests.
Appetizers cover bruschetta, eggplant rolls in marinara or vodka sauce, fried
and grilled calamari, baked clams, steamed clams and mussels, fried shrimp
and a sausage giambotta. Specialty dishes carry lobster tail diavolo, baccala,
linguini with clams or mussels in red or white, shrimp in several
preparations, tilapia, both lasagnas and a house Italian beef sold by weight
for making sandwiches. Sides run spinach, broccoli, rappini, Vesuvio potatoes
and grilled vegetables. Desserts are tiramisu, mini cannoli and brownies.
Vegetarian eaters do fine without a special request. Eggplant parmesan,
pasta primavera, a dairy-free artichoke dish, cheese lasagna, the salads and
the whole vegetable side list all come by the pan, so a meatless pan sits on
the table looking like every other pan. Our
vegetarian office catering
guide covers scoping that share of the room. Gluten-free is handled as a
conversation rather than a menu line, so raise it on the call; the
gluten-free guide lists the
questions worth asking.
Where this menu is the wrong call
Pans need a table and a room. If your team eats at desks on a hybrid
schedule, or the food has to split across two floors, you will fight this
menu the whole way and an individually portioned order will serve you better.
Some of this list also travels better than the rest. Baked pasta, lasagna, parmigiana and the roasted sides
hold heat and hold shape. Fried calamari, fried shrimp and anything crisp
want to be eaten near the kitchen, so put those on a short-drive order or
skip them.
Distance is the other honest limit. Capri Express cooks in Burr Ridge, not
in the Loop, so a downtown drop needs a real conversation about timing rather
than an assumption. For offices that want the same food style closer in, the
Chicago Italian directory
lists kitchens in the city, including
Firenze
Italian Street Food,
Pastafi,
Arturo’s Deli and
Phil’s Italian
Doro. Out in the suburbs the same directory carries
Fratello’s
Italian,
Something’s
Cooking Italian Kitchen,
La Rosa Pizza,
Billy
Bricks Wood Fired Pizza and, a few doors from Capri itself,
One Stop Sub
& Slice Shop.
Who Capri Express is ideal for
- Southwest-suburban offices in and around Burr Ridge,
Hinsdale, Oak Brook, Willowbrook and Darien, where the drive is short and the
food arrives at temperature. - Rooms of twelve to twenty, the size where the two-half-pans
trick does the most work and a table can carry three or four dishes. - Evening meetings and client dinners, where a menu of veal,
seafood and house pastas reads differently from a stack of sandwich
platters. - Recurring team lunches that need to look different week to
week without renegotiating a budget, since the preparation and sauce choices
cost nothing. - Mixed rooms that need a meatless pan to sit on the table
as an equal rather than as an accommodation.
How to order Capri Express catering
Direct. Capri Express takes catering orders by phone and
online through its own catering site, and the printed menu asks you to call
about delivery rather than publishing a radius. Direct is the right channel
when you want to talk through a preparation, ask about gluten-free handling
on a specific dish, or price the sea bass.
Through Zerocater. The
Capri Express vendor page carries the current catering
menu and pricing, and ordering through Zerocater puts the delivery window,
the headcount and the invoice on the same rails as the rest of your food
program. If you are still shaping the order,
CaterAi builds a menu from your headcount, budget and
dietary split, and you edit it by chat until the pans line up. Our
how it works page covers the rest of the
mechanics, and the
event catering
checklist is worth a read before anything with a run of show.
Capri Express and Zerocater
Capri Express is one of a thousand-plus culinary partners on the Zerocater
network, and it fills a slot that is harder to fill than it looks: a family
Italian kitchen with dining-room range that will send that food out in
catering quantities. Most kitchens give you one or the other.
For teams building a rotation rather than booking one meal, the
Chicago catering directory and our
Chicago
office catering roundup cover the wider bench, and
what office catering costs in
Chicago sets expectations before you brief anyone. If you are hunting for
a format rather than a cuisine,
office lunch ideas by the kind of day
your team is having is the faster way in, and
Tivoli is the closest thing to a Capri
equivalent on the Boston side of the network. Ongoing programs run through
corporate catering, and one-off
events through
event catering.
Menu composition,
pan sizing and pricing are set by Capri Express and can change. This post
describes the shape of the menu rather than its numbers. Check the
Capri Express vendor page for the current catering menu
and a live quote, and confirm dietary handling on any specific dish directly
with the kitchen before you order.
Build an Italian catering menu with CaterAi
Frequently Asked Questions
How many people does a half pan of Capri Express catering feed?
The catering menu prints the same serving spec on every section. A half pan is built for six to eight people and a full pan for twelve to fifteen. The marketplace listing runs a touch more conservative and spec’s the half pan at six. Use the lower end when the room skews hungry or when the pan is the only hot dish on the table, and the upper end when you have put out two or three pans plus a salad.
Is a full pan cheaper than two half pans?
Almost never, and that is the useful part. Across the pan menu the full pan is priced at exactly twice the half pan on nearly every line, and on the small handful of exceptions it lands just under twice. Nothing lands above. So ordering two half pans of different dishes costs what one full pan of a single dish costs, and it covers the same headcount. Variety is close to free on this menu.
Do the different chicken and veal preparations cost different amounts?
No. Capri Express lists one price for chicken and one price for veal, then hands you a long list of preparations to pick from at no change in price. Marsala, Vesuvio, Francese, Piccata, Parmesan, Saltimbocca and the rest all sit at the same number. The protein you choose moves the bill. The preparation does not.
Can you mix pasta shapes and sauces in one order?
Yes, and the price holds. The pasta section is sold as one pan price against a choice of shape and a choice of sauce, so a pan of gnocchi in vodka sauce and a pan of cavatelli in Bolognese cost the same as two pans of the house default. Ask for the sauce on the side if the pans have to sit through a long meeting.
Does Capri Express deliver to downtown Chicago offices?
Capri Express runs catering delivery out of Burr Ridge, and the catering menu asks you to call for the details rather than printing a radius. Burr Ridge sits southwest of the city, so confirm your delivery window when you book, especially for a morning drop in the Loop. Ordering through Zerocater handles the routing and the timing for you.
Are there vegetarian and gluten-free options?
Vegetarian is well covered in the pan format. Eggplant parmesan, pasta primavera, an artichoke dish built without dairy, cheese lasagna, the full salad list and a row of vegetable sides all come by the half or full pan. Gluten-free works differently here. The menu invites you to ask rather than listing gluten-free items as their own line, so raise it on the call and confirm the specific dish and its preparation.
