Extra Win: How to enjoy your own dinner party
The art of hosting — don’t do that, do this...
I recently wrote a guest post for
’s brilliant Substack, The Dinner Party and it got me thinking about hosting (Rosie, I should add, is the dream hostess).I don’t think it’s an overstatement to describe hosting as an art. A dinner party is a delicate balancing act — one that requires you to balance people and personalities, deliver a menu that impresses yet welcomes, and create a vibe that is neither too raucous nor too subdued.
Orchestrating such an evening, and feeding a bunch of people, can quickly become stressful if the host hasn’t carefully considered and planned the very raison d’être of a dinner party: the menu.
Perhaps counterintuitively, the key to being a good host — a host that gets to enjoy their own party! — is to resist the temptation to do too much. This is easy enough to understand in principle, but take a moment to let the message sink in. I say this because it’s very human to want to show off, to peacock, to compete (hence the immense popularity of Come Dine With Me).
When I host a dinner party I’m fairly good at coming up with a sensible plan initially, but then something happens along the way: as the event nears the impulse to up the ante builds. Suddenly I’m contemplating adding a course to the menu, dehydrating the orange slices to go in the negronis, buying a whole new set of plates, making the bread from scratch and creating a new bespoke playlist specifically for this unique evening rather than simply re-using an old one. In short: I start over-complicating it (just me?!). You must resist the temptation (and by you, I really mean me) because when it comes to hosting less is — emphatically! — more.
I’m not suggesting that one approaches hosting a dinner party with a total lack of ambition. Having people over is a lovely opportunity to show a bit of flair. But the trick is to pick and choose your moments, rather than to go all-out in all areas. You have to make some courses or parts of the evening easier, so that you have the capacity to deliver the spectacular moments.
As someone who loves to host and has run supper clubs in their home, I’ve learnt a few tricks and some guiding principles for hosting effortlessly — and today I’m sharing them with you in a “don’t do that, do this” format.
Below are 5 bits of actionable advice for how to approach a dinner party, plus a bonus section on tablescaping that includes my favourite, forever chic and also cheap (!) cocktail glasses, plus the place where I get most of my tablecloths (I get asked this a lot). I hope all of this is useful as we head into this period of entertaining.
Love,
Alexina
1.
DON’T: Make everything from scratch
DO: Buy in the snacks — and the bread, and the fries, and the pastry
I’ve worked in professional kitchens and they do not make everything from scratch — far from it. The bread, the pastry, the fries, the snacks… most of these will be bought in. This is not about laziness: it’s smart. The more items you make from scratch the more your time and attention will be divided. You are better off spending the majority of your time nailing 2 to 3 key elements of a meal, rather than split it across 12.
It’s also about realising that you don’t have to do it all by yourself. You don’t have to be the best baker and the best chef and the best bartender. Your focus should simply be on being the best host over anything else, and for that you should lean on others’ expertise. Your local bakery is probably going to have a better grasp of how to make excellent sourdough than you because, quite simply, they do it every day. Make the most of it!
At the very least, buy in the snacks. Producing any sort of vaguely canapé-like item is fussy and time-consuming. You don’t want to be starting your evening with this task — it’ll immediately put you on the back foot. Instead, take advantage of the fact that there are many delicious snacks available to buy that you can simply pour into a pretty bowl. Off the top of my head: salted marcona almonds, nocellara olives, spicy biltong, taralli, fancy crisps (these Torres jamon ones are so good).
Don’t stop at the snacks, though: do also buy in the bread, the fries and the puff pastry (Jus Rol is a fantastic product — particularly if you’re catering for vegans — though I tend to go for Dorset Pastry since it’s just flour, butter, water, eggs and salt). It’s also completely okay to buy high-quality pastes and sauces (e.g. harissa, green Thai curry paste, hot sauce) to use in your cooking — you are not cheating if you don’t make the harissa from scratch, I promise.
I love making desserts and always make my own, but that doesn’t mean that you have to — especially if you don’t enjoy baking. Dessert is the easiest course to buy in — or even better: ask your guests to bring something sweet (
’s cookbook I’ll Bring Dessert can help them with that!).Finally, in the vein of leaning on others’ expertise and strengths:
Do place an online order for everything that you need that isn’t meat, fish or veg: though it can be on the more expensive side I rate Ocado from a reliability and customer service perspective (and you can get some good deals if you have your wits about you).
Do get your butcher or fishmongers to prep your meat/fish exactly as you need it — it’s part of the service they offer, so don’t be shy! Your fishmonger can not only gut fish, they can fillet it or even butterfly it. They can gut your squid and also cut it into rings. They can devein your prawns. Always ask them to pin-bone your fillets. Your butcher can cut your short ribs to the specific size you need etc. etc.
Do accept help from friends if they offer it! More on this further below.
In short: don’t be a hero.
2.
DON’T: Produce a several-course tasting menu (or even a 3-course meal)
DO: Drop the starters, and stick to a formula of snacks + main + dessert
I don’t know who needs to hear this but starters aren’t even cool anymore*. Either go all fancy and do a tasting menu (but honestly, don’t do that — that’s not cool anymore, either) or do something effortless and casual, but still chic.
The formula of (bought-in) snacks + main + (make-ahead) dessert works really well — let me explain why:
The snacks are bought in so you get to share a cocktail with your guests (rather than fuss with canapés)
The main is your pièce de resistance — the course you actively slave over
Once the main’s down on the table, you can fully relax knowing that the dessert is pretty much ready to go
The trick with this formula is to make the main feel really abundant (more on this in tip #4).
*If you must serve a starter do at least observe these rules:
Select something that can be served at room temperature
Opt for an ingredient-led dish (e.g. burrata with a nice dressing or accompaniment). A soup — though a bit retro in the context of a dinner party — can also work well since it can be made ahead and simply reheated.
3.
DON’T: Fall into the trap of believing that everything has to be cooked at the last minute (or be piping hot, for that matter)
DO: Ensure that most items on the menu are make-ahead, or have been properly prepped ahead
The biggest difference between a professional chef and an ambitious home cook is an appreciation of how much needs to be made in advance.
Restaurants make loads of stuff ahead — they call it their “mise en place”, which means ‘to put into place’ — so that by the time they have to deliver the food it’s more a reheating and compiling job than anything else. You should adopt a similar mentality.
With this in mind, you should definitely…