About Taste By Tiny’s
A home kitchen
that turned into a calling
Latonya “Tiny” DeBarry cooks for people the same way she always has — with care, with too much food, and with the intention that nobody leaves hungry or unimpressed.
“If I would not serve it to my own family, it does not leave my kitchen.”
Latonya DeBarry · Owner & Cook
Taste By Tiny’s did not start with a business plan. It started with a full kitchen and a waiting list of friends.
Tiny cooked for family gatherings, birthdays and Sunday dinners long before anyone paid her for it. Word traveled the way it does when food is genuinely good — a cousin’s shower, a neighbor’s anniversary, a friend-of-a-friend’s wedding. Eventually the requests outnumbered the favors, and Taste By Tiny’s, LLC was born.
What makes the food hers is not a secret spice blend or a signature dish. It is that she actually tastes as she goes, cooks to the season instead of the calendar, and refuses to send out anything she would not put in front of her own people. Her crab cakes get asked for by name. Her fried chicken shows up at parties where the host swore they wanted something fancy. Both belong on the same table.
Today she caters weddings, birthday parties and private dining experiences across Middlesex, Somerset, Union and Essex Counties — working out of New Brunswick, with a menu written fresh for each event and a hand in every plate that goes out.
Clients describe the experience the same way again and again: it feels like having a very good cook in the family who happens to also be a professional. That is exactly the standard she holds herself to.
What that means for you
Four things every client gets
One cook, start to finish
Tiny plans the menu, shops the market, seasons the pot and plates the dish herself. Nothing is delegated to a stranger the day of your event.
Seasonal, not frozen
The menu follows what is actually good that week. Fresh produce, real butter, sauces made in the kitchen — not poured out of a jug.
Comfort food with technique
The dishes people ask for are the familiar ones, cooked properly. Crisp where it should be crisp, seasoned when it should be seasoned.
Your event, your rules
Plated, family style, stationed or passed. Tiny builds service around the room you have and the day you have planned.
Where you will find her
New Brunswick, New Jersey
Cooking across Middlesex, Somerset, Union & Essex Counties.
See what she caters