Everything goes wrong immediately when a guest commits the ultimate indiscretion and turns up an hour early. Dinner parties are tough. Nothing ever goes as planned. The whole idea is to catch up with your nearest and dearest but you can do that with much less hassle, and with far more enjoyment, in the comforting surroundings of your favourite London restaurant. The food is better, the wine list more interesting (albeit more expensive), and you don’t have to do the dishes afterwards.
Still riding a wave of post-pandemic popularity, more of us are being pressured into hosting a dreaded dinner party than ever before. The problems only begin with that early guest. Surely everybody knows that ‘Come any time after six’ doesn’t actually mean six, and it certainly doesn’t mean ‘stroll through the door at half five’. ‘Arrive at six’ means different things to different people – to punctual friends it means ‘get here for quarter to seven’. To notoriously tardy friends it means ‘dinner will be served at half seven, arrive before that.
Then to the main event: the meal. The ordeal begins long before the evening in question – days, weeks, sometimes even months before. There is the all-important menu planning, which in today’s climate is not for the faint-hearted. Instagram and TikTok are laden with ‘easy dinner party recipes’, ‘cooking with friends on a budget’, ‘how to keep my roast chicken moist’ and elaborate tablescapes, meaning there’s mounting pressure to absolutely nail your spread. If you’re not laying down a seventies-style dining experience that features a fondue, a seven-layer salad, a meat dish, a fish dish, a vegan dish, a nut-free dish, a gluten-free dish, and everything in between, there’s little point in trying.
If you’re not Cordon Bleu-trained, choreographing everything to come out on time, whilst entertaining a house full of hungry, impatient friends, is no mean feat. Pressure mounts, hot dishes end up cold, and cold dishes end up hot. Orchestrating an overly ambitious meal armed with a domestic oven, a handful of hobs, and just two hands, is not conducive to convivial dining.
A host can only handle so much, and adhering to all intolerances, likes and dislikes can be a minefield, even more so when there’s a growing confusion between an allergy, intolerance and an aversion. Whilst going above and beyond for the former is a no-brainer, navigating guests with the latter can be downright exhausting (sorry mum).
So what’s the alternative? That’s simple – leave it to the professionals. If you can orchestrate a get-together at a restaurant everyone agrees on, you’ve truly mastered the art of the dinner party. I’ll take a table for eight and a flawless dinner at BiBi’s, BBQ by the fire at Acme Fire Cult, or a boozy, steak-filled night with Max Cohen at Dorian over a mediocre meal in the deepest depths of suburbia any day, and I’m sure the rest of the party would agree. All fun, no stress, and you can leave whenever you want.
• Justin is the founder of Sera, a membership platform made for food enthusiasts