FOOD FOR THOUGHT
The pandemic temporarily put paid to inviting friends over for dinner – but the good news is that cooking for others is back, but with less stress and far greater rewards than yesteryear. Sarah Maber shares how to reboot your entertaining mojo
T ime was when hosting a dinner party meant spending hours in the kitchen b efore laying the table with your best c rystal. Not any more. Post-pandemic, d inner parties are lower in effort and h igher in fun: fewer courses, shop-bought p uds and assembly-job grazing boards mean you can actually spend time with your guests rather than slaving over a hot stove while all the conversation happens without you.
Take a recent gettogether at a friend’s house. We gathered round her kitchen island and chatted while she served crémant sparkling wine, homemade tzatziki and houmous with artisan breadsticks, torn burrata cheese, Serrano ham and figs. Huge terracotta bowls of salads with chickpeas, feta and pomegranate seeds appeared, with a platter of roast chicken.
We took a plate from the pile at the end of the island, served ourselves, then carried our haul over to the dining table where cutlery, water and wine were stacked at the far end. It was jolly, delicious, low effort yet stylish – and we got a chance to chat to her, not just each other.
‘One of the nicest things to do is have all your friends round a table, especially after Covid,’ says Debora Robertson, food writer and author of Notes from a Small Kitchen Island (Penguin, £26). ‘That was the one thing I couldn’t wait to do again. I missed that Friday-night event when all our friends poured in and sat around being really noisy. It’s just an excuse to have a lot of fun.’
But perhaps another hangover from the pandemic is the trend to keep things cosy and casual; people embraced the slower pace of life and have no wish to return to the glittering, complex dinner parties of old. ‘I suspect many of us who weren’t on the frontline found we rather enjoyed the more casual pace of life at home during lockdown,’ says food writer Felicity Cloake, author of Red Sauce Brown Sauce: A British Breakfast Odyssey (Mudlark, £16.99). ‘As delighted as we are to be able to have our friends around once more, we’re not necessarily keen to return to the faff of formal dinner parties.’
‘I love a dinner party but I do feel the landscape has changed,’ says former MasterChef winner and restaurateur Kenny Tutt. ‘Although formal tablecloths and crystal wine decanters still have a place, the best nights are the ones that aren’t stressful – when you relax and enjoy it.’ So, what does a modern dinner party look like, 2022-style?
THE FOOD
TO START…
Make it assembly-only; traditional starter
