Retreat Menu Planning: Sample Menu, Dietary Needs, Costs

1. Start from one base menu

The most useful decision in retreat menu planning is to cook one base menu that most guests can eat, then add to it — rather than cooking a standard menu and producing alternatives for everyone who cannot. A plant-forward vegetarian base, with proteins and extras on the side, covers the largest share of needs with the fewest parallel dishes.

Every separate dish is extra cost, extra time and an extra chance of something going to the wrong plate. A base menu that is naturally vegetarian, with gluten-free carbohydrates where it costs nothing to make them so, might leave the cook with two or three adaptations per meal instead of six.

A vegetarian base is not about the majority: only 4% of US adults identify as vegetarian and 1% as vegan (Gallup, 2023). It works because almost everyone can eat it, and the guests who want meat or fish get it on the side.

From there, add rather than substitute: a fish or meat option alongside the main dish, bread next to the rice rather than instead of it, dairy served on the side. Guests with no restrictions eat everything; guests with restrictions eat most of it.

2. Who cooks

There are three ways to feed a retreat — the venue's catering, a private cook, or doing it yourself — and they differ less in quality than in cost structure. Venue catering is usually priced per guest; a private cook's day rate is fixed, whether six guests come or fourteen.

Cooking yourself looks cheapest and usually is not, once you count what it does to the rest of the retreat. For anything over six guests or two nights, budget for someone else to cook.

3. Timing food around the schedule

Retreat food has a job the schedule gives it:

• Before morning practice: something light, or nothing but tea, fruit and water. A full breakfast before an active session is uncomfortable for most people.
• After morning practice: the real breakfast — the meal guests most look forward to.
• Lunch or dinner as the main meal: pick one and make it the generous, sit-down meal of the day. The other can be lighter.
• Before an evening session: keep dinner light or move it after the session.
• All day: water, herbal tea, fruit and a simple snack within reach. Hungry guests are distracted guests.

Write meal times into the run of show with a named person responsible for each — the schedule and run of show builder handles it.

4. A sample three-day retreat menu

A vegetarian base menu for a three-day retreat, with the adaptations marked. Treat it as a template for structure rather than a recipe list — your cook will have better ideas for local, seasonal produce.

Notice what the base does: almost every main dish is already vegan or gluten-free, so most adaptations are a side or a swap rather than a separate meal.

5. Dietary needs and allergies

Collect dietary needs in writing before arrival, turn them into a matrix the cook can work from, and treat severe allergies as a safety matter rather than a preference: confirmed with the cook directly, in writing, and labelled at every meal.

Expect at least one allergy in any group. In the United States, 6.2% of adults had a diagnosed food allergy in 2021, and 7.8% of women (CDC); the UK's Food Standards Agency puts clinically confirmed food allergy at about 6% of adults. Coeliac disease affects at least 1 in 100 people in the UK (NHS). In a group of 12 mostly women, one guest with a food allergy is the normal case, not bad luck.

Collect them at the right time

Ask for dietary needs when guests pay their balance, not at booking — early enough for the cook to plan, late enough that most people have actually confirmed. The planning guide covers what to collect when.

Give the cook a matrix, not a list of names

Severe allergies

Speak to the guest directly before arrival, confirm in writing with the cook what they will and will not use, and check whether the guest carries medication and who on your team knows how to help. In the EU and UK, food served to guests is subject to rules on the fourteen major allergens, which caterers will know; if you cook yourself, learn them.

6. Food cost per guest

To know what food really costs, add ingredients, the cook's fee and any kitchen help, then divide by guest-days. The catch is that a cook's day rate is fixed: food is only partly a per-guest cost, and treating it as fully variable understates your break-even.

Split it in your budget the same way the cost behaves. Ingredients scale with headcount and belong in per-guest costs. The cook's fee does not, and belongs in fixed costs. A four-day retreat with a cook at a fixed daily rate costs the same in cooking whether eight guests come or twelve — only the shopping changes.

The budget builder lets you mark each line as fixed or per guest, so the cook and the ingredients land on the right side.

7. Quantities and waste

Retreat guests eat more than they do at home — more activity, more fresh air, fewer snacks between meals. Plan generous portions for the first day, with a margin of around ten percent on the main dishes, then adjust. By the second day the cook will know the group's appetite, and waste falls quickly.

Food service wastes more than it seems: it accounts for 28% of the 1.05 billion tonnes of food wasted worldwide in 2022 (UNEP Food Waste Index 2024), and in the UK, hospitality and food service threw away about 1.1 million tonnes in 2021, of which 800,000 tonnes were still edible (WRAP).

Three habits keep waste down without anyone going hungry:

• Serve family-style or buffet rather than plated, so guests take what they will eat.
• Plan one "use-up" meal mid-retreat — a frittata, a soup, a grain bowl — that turns leftovers into a proper dish.
• Ask guests at the end of the first day what they would like more or less of.

8. The small things guests remember

• Something on arrival. Guests arrive tired and at different times. Soup, bread and tea waiting for them sets the tone.
• A coffee decision. Caffeine-free retreats exist and some guests love them; others arrive with a headache. Decide, and say so on the booking page.
• Alcohol. Allowed, provided, or neither — another decision to make in advance rather than at the first dinner.
• A portable last meal. On departure day, people leave at different times. A packed lunch avoids a half-empty table and a rushed goodbye.
• A meal the group cooks together. On a food or nourishment theme, it can be the highlight of the week.

9. Common questions

Sources: Gallup, vegetarian and vegan identification (2023), CDC NCHS Data Brief 460, Food Standards Agency, adult food allergy (2024), NHS, Coeliac disease, UNEP, Food Waste Index Report 2024, WRAP, Food surplus and waste in the UK (2023).