Catering Sydney CBD: Office Lunch and Corporate Event Guide

What's the best catering option for Sydney CBD offices?

For a Sydney CBD office, the best catering option is one that arrives ready to serve, scales to your headcount without fuss, and respects the dietary range you'll usually see in a city team. Empanadas tick all three. They are portion-controlled, eat well at room temperature for at least 90 minutes after delivery, and don't need plates or cutlery, which matters when you're feeding 30 to 80 people in a meeting room with limited bench space.

Our most ordered CBD option is the Corporate Box at $499. It contains 100 baked empanadas across the five active flavours: Carnivore, The Athlete, The Classic, Patagonia and Habibi Yalla. For smaller teams, the Party Box (60 empanadas) is a better fit. See how many empanadas per person for headcount maths.

How does delivery work to CBD office towers?

CBD towers vary widely. Some have ground-floor concierge desks that accept food deliveries on your behalf. Others require the driver to be met at the lobby or signed up to a building access system. When you book, we ask for the building name, floor, and whichever contact will meet the driver. For larger towers around Bridge Street, Macquarie Street, Pitt Street and Market Street, we usually allow an extra 10 minutes for parking and lift access.

We deliver to the full CBD postcode range, including The Rocks, Barangaroo, Wynyard, Martin Place, Hyde Park, World Square and Town Hall. Our driver will message ahead so your team can clear bench space before the boxes arrive. For more on the broader area, see our corporate events catering collection.

How early do I need to book CBD catering?

For standard orders up to about 80 empanadas, 48 hours is comfortable. For 100 or more, give us 72 hours so we can sequence baking with our other catering runs that morning. For anything involving Halal-only batches, gluten-free trays, or larger conference-scale orders (300+), we ask for a full week. See catering for 50 people and catering for 100 people for the typical lead-time and box mix at each scale.

December and end-of-financial-year (late June) are our busiest windows. CBD office Christmas parties and EOFY team lunches book out 4 to 6 weeks ahead. If your date is fixed, lock it in early and we'll confirm the box mix closer to the day.

What's the minimum order for CBD office catering?

The minimum order is $85, which is the same as one Chef's Box (36 empanadas across 3 flavours). For most CBD offices, that's enough for a team of 10 to 12 as a light lunch, or 16 to 18 as a snack or canape-style spread. There is no extra fee for catering versus retail; you pay the box price plus delivery.

If you're feeding a smaller meeting (say, a board lunch of 6), the Chef's Box still works and gives you leftovers for the kitchen. We don't carry sub-$85 catering options because the operational cost of a CBD delivery doesn't make sense below that threshold.

How much should I budget per person for CBD office lunches?

Sydney CBD office lunch catering typically runs $25 to $45 per person at the finger food and shared lunch end of the market, and $35 to $70 per person for a substantial seated working lunch. That is the benchmark to plan against once you include drinks, salads, sides and service.

Argentum sits inside that picture as the food component. At catering scale, baked empanadas come in at roughly $5.00 to $5.32 each. For a substantial office lunch where empanadas are the main, 3 to 4 per person works out to $15 to $21 per person on the empanadas themselves. For a morning tea or shared snack, 2 to 3 each is $10 to $16 per person. Add drinks, salads or a sweet platter and a realistic all-in office lunch lands at $30 to $50 per person.

If you're comparing options, our pricing includes the food made in our Bondi kitchen, delivery within Sydney, and full dietary labelling. There are no hidden service fees. For mixed-event budgeting, see best finger food catering Sydney.

What's the best flavour mix for a CBD office crowd?

For a typical CBD office of 30 to 80 people, the safest mix is roughly: 30% Carnivore (slow-cooked grass-fed beef brisket, our most popular), 25% The Athlete (chicken with green olives, curry, wholemeal dough), 20% The Classic (cheese, vegetarian), 15% Patagonia (vegan, green dough, the dietary standout), and 10% Habibi Yalla (open-top Middle Eastern beef, our newest). This mix covers carnivore, lighter chicken, vegetarian and vegan in one drop.

If your team skews heavily vegetarian or vegan, we'll shift Patagonia and Classic up to 50% combined. If it's a sales or finance team that historically clears the meat trays first, we lift Carnivore to 40%. Just tell us your team profile when you order.

Can you cater corporate events in CBD venues?

Yes. We regularly cater corporate events at hotel function rooms, co-working spaces, rooftop venues and private dining rooms across the CBD. For events with 50 to 200 guests, the Corporate Box scales cleanly: two boxes cover 50 to 60 people as a substantial spread, four boxes cover 100 to 120. For larger events, we run multi-box deliveries timed to your event start.

We can also serve baked empanadas hot from insulated trays for cocktail-style events, or pre-plate them for sit-down catering. For larger conference-scale operations, see our corporate catering Sydney CBD guide and office catering Sydney overview.

Do you deliver to The Rocks, Barangaroo, Wynyard?

Yes, we deliver across the entire CBD footprint. The Rocks, Barangaroo, Wynyard, Circular Quay, Martin Place, Town Hall, Hyde Park, Darling Harbour and World Square are all standard delivery zones. For Barangaroo's larger towers (International Towers 1, 2 and 3), we ask for the floor and a contact name on the day so the driver can be signed in efficiently. Lift access on these buildings is tight at peak hours, so we usually deliver between 10am and 11:30am or after 1:30pm.

For events at venues like The Calyx in the Royal Botanic Garden or function rooms at Customs House, we treat the delivery as a function drop with a confirmed contact at the door.

Where can I order halal or vegan catering in Sydney CBD?

For vegan catering, Patagonia (our green-dough vegan empanada) is available year-round with no advance notice required. It uses a separate dough and filling, and is fully labelled as vegan. For halal catering, we offer Halal options on request with a week's notice. We don't carry standard halal-certified ranges, but for catering orders we can prepare halal-compliant batches when booked in advance.

Gluten-free is large catering orders only on request with a week's notice (it isn't a standard retail option). For mixed dietary needs across a single office, the standard 5-flavour mix usually covers vegetarian, vegan, and lighter chicken options out of the box.