Arancini for Catering in Sydney

Arancini are Sicilian rice balls: risotto rolled around a filling, coated in breadcrumbs and fried until the shell is crisp and the centre is molten. The name means little oranges, after the colour and shape they take once cooked. They started as street food in Palermo and Catania, sold from bakery counters to be eaten standing up, and that origin is exactly why they work so well at an event — an arancino is designed to be eaten in the hand, without a plate, while you are talking to someone.

That makes them one of the few genuinely Italian items that slot into an Australian function without any adaptation. Where most canapés need a plate, a fork or a passing waiter, arancini need none of the three. Guests pick one up, eat it in two or three bites, and go back to their conversation.

Our arancini come from La Cucina di Papa, a Sydney Italian bakery producing them to a traditional Sicilian method. Five fillings are available:

• Veal — the closest to the classic Sicilian arancino al ragù, and the one most guests recognise. If you are ordering a single flavour for a mixed crowd, order this one.
• Spinach & Ricotta — vegetarian, milder, and the flavour that tends to disappear fastest at events where a good share of guests do not eat meat.
• Chicken & Mushroom — savoury and mellow, a safe middle option that appeals across ages.
• Mushroom & Truffle — the premium choice, and the one to put out at a wedding or a corporate function where you want a flavour guests will remark on.
• Pea & Cheese — vegetarian, and traditionally the second great Sicilian filling after ragù.

For most events we suggest three flavours rather than one: it gives guests a choice, covers vegetarians without a separate order, and stops any single flavour from running out first.

Arancini come in two sizes, and the choice depends on what else is on the table.

Cocktail arancini are the canapé size: one or two bites, eaten standing, no plate. This is the size for pre-dinner grazing, for the hour before the pizza oven comes up to temperature, and for cocktail-style functions where nothing is served seated. It is the size we sell most of, by a wide margin.

Large arancini are a substantial item — closer to a small meal than a canapé. They suit buffets where guests are filling a plate, lunch drops for an office, and events where you want a vegetarian or meat option with real weight to it rather than something to nibble.

Ordering both is common at weddings: cocktail arancini during drinks, large arancini on the buffet later.

These are the numbers we plan to when a client asks us to work it out. Treat them as a starting point — we will adjust them against your run sheet before quoting.

• Alongside a full pizza catering menu: 2–3 cocktail arancini per guest. The pizza is the meal; the arancini cover the gap before it starts.
• As part of a wider canapé selection: 3–4 cocktail arancini per guest, assuming three or four other items are circulating.
• As the main savoury item at a drinks function: 5–6 cocktail arancini per guest.
• Large arancini on a buffet: one per guest, on the assumption that other dishes are sharing the table.

The single most common mistake is under-ordering the hour before the main food arrives. Guests arrive hungry, and whatever is on the table at that point disappears at roughly twice the rate you expect.

Our pizza oven needs around 90 minutes to come up to temperature before the first pizza goes in, and that window is the reason most of our clients add arancini in the first place. Guests arrive, the oven is visibly working, and there is something to eat immediately rather than a wait.

They also work in the other direction. A pizza menu is bread-heavy by nature; arancini are rice, which gives the table a second texture without adding another dough. On menus where we are serving both, we tend to pull the arancini count back slightly — guests eat more pizza than they predict.

If you are running a mixed Italian table, arancini sit naturally next to the eggplant parmigiana and the meatball tray: one fried, one baked, one braised, and a clear vegetarian option among them.

There are two ways to get arancini from us. You can add them to a pizza catering booking, in which case they arrive with the team and are served hot alongside everything else — no minimum beyond your catering booking itself. Or you can order them on their own for drop-off delivery, which is the option offices and home hosts use when there is no oven and no staff involved.

Drop-off orders are delivered across the Sydney suburbs we already cover. Prices exclude GST, and a GST tax invoice follows the delivery.

If you want to know how to reheat and serve them yourself, our arancini guide covers cooking from frozen, dipping sauces and the questions we get asked most often.