Parizade

Parizade was the perfect venue for our wedding! Some of our top priorities when choosing a venue included that our guests would enjoy a delicious meal and be able to safely get back to where they were staying after the wedding. We LOVE the food Parizade, and it is conveniently across the street from a Hilton hotel, so it checked both boxes. Costs: The venue rental for our Sunday wedding was $500, plus a $5k food and drink minimum. Super reasonable. Atmosphere: I would say the vibe of the restaurant is eclectic-Mediterranean-meets-NYC. It was very well suited for our very eclectic wedding celebration! We rented out the whole restaurant for our Sunday wedding, so we had access to all the rooms in Parizade, which each have a unique feel, but those same eclectic-Mediterranean tones. More detail on the various rooms: The rooms include the main dining room, the board room (blue room with a bunch of gold framed photographs), the courtyard, and an additional smaller dining room (black and white checkered floors). We held our ceremony in the main dining room, cocktail hour in the back & white room, and reception in the back & white room. The board room was used for the groom crew to hangout in for a few hours while the bridal party got ready off site. This was our rainy day plan – our original plan was to have the ceremony outside in the courtyard with the very beautiful fountain. Event coordinator: The event coordinator, Jennifer, was extremely professional and organized. She provided us with paper copies of the menu options that we could select from and gave us the run down on the price points and food & drink minimums, and ideas from what people have done in the past for events. She was very responsive to email. She also provided a list of recommended wedding planners/coordinators to work with (the venue requires that you work with one)! Jennifer, if you’re reading this – thank you so much!! Staff: I was overwhelmed by our guests responses to the venue and the servers after the wedding. Numerous people texted me after the wedding, commenting on how amazing the food was and how taken care of they felt at the wedding! Parizade, thank you for taking such good care of our loved ones and ensuring they had such a lovely experience and meal!! My husband and I were taken care of by Misel, who was excellent- he even would find me to give me plates of food throughout the evening to ensure I wasn’t too busy to eat! The manager, Igor, was also a key person who ensured the success of the night. Thank you so much! Food: AMAZING. This is one of our favorite restaurants in Durham (and my #1 favorite!). We have had everything on the menu, and knew our guests were in for a treat, even those with dietary restrictions. They accommodate food restrictions and sensitivities (3 guests have gluten sensitivities, multiple are vegetarian) and mark these easily on the menus. Parizade offers tiered menus with a range of price points that you select and then can offer those menu options for your guests to order from a server during the reception. We liked that option because it gave our guests a more personal experience and gave them the chance to order food they were interested in on that day, rather than having to pick a meal a month out like other venues require.

I had the occasion to visit for lunch and was very impressed. I hadn't been there for some time and never for lunch before. Great menu variety and perfect portions for mid day. Atmosphere was upscale casual and the meal was delicious. My only suggestion would be to have slightly less onion in the salad, but maybe that's just me. Certainly would / will return. Thanks so much for following up Allie. I had the lunch chicken souvlaki kebab with chopped Greek salad. It was absolutely wonderful. Perfect chicken, very high quality greens & other veggies. My comment about the onion was just a ratio / quantity one. With chopped red onion, I think it's a powerful ingredient and having a little less in the dish will allow all of the other amazing favors to have their room to shine without the onion masking them.  Again, just my personal taste, but I thought I'd let you know. Also wonderful to have so many GF options and an easy menu structure to find them. As a celiac diet eater, I appreciate so many outstanding GF choices. Thanks again.