Hosting a dinner party is not as hard as you might think, as long as you are well organised when you are preparing your food, drink and the tableware you will need.
Dinner parties are the ideal way to bring people together for an enjoyable evening, whether it be close family, friends and neighbours, or work colleagues. The idea is to create an environment that everyone can appreciate and an atmosphere of luxury and sophistication that your guests will remember with pleasure.
It’s obviously important that the food and drink you provide, whether you make it yourself or get outside caterers to provide it, is of top quality. If you love to cook, then homemade food is a real winner, though it’s probably best to prepare dishes that you are comfortable with and have previously tried out rather than go all experimental. There’s nothing wrong with trying new things, but you want to make a good impression.
Your food can be exciting and innovative, so make sure that you plan out your timings for everything. It can be quite pressurised if you’re doing everything yourself, but you’ll get immense satisfaction when you draw everything to a successful conclusion and receive the compliments of your guests.
Good-quality drink is also an essential for a luxury dinner party. Don’t forget about those who may be driving – provide soft drinks as well as alcoholic ones. Choose carefully for your aperitifs, wine with the meal, and the digestifs for afterwards.
Tableware tips
One aspect that you need to consider to help create that luxury feel to the dinner party is your tableware. The plates, serving dishes, cutlery and glasses can all contribute to the feeling that this is a high-quality dinner party. Avoid using ordinary plates or chipped wine glasses, and if you are using caterers, don’t serve up from the containers the food came in.
Luxury china
Use the best china that you have for serving up. If you are fortunate enough to have china with your family crest, then use that. It creates a wonderful impression and can be a fascinating talking point as well for your guests. There are many beautiful sets of china available, so it’s worth taking the time and trouble to have one when you’re planning to host a luxury dinner party. Fine china can lift a dinner table simply by the way it looks, and food arranged on it can look fantastic as well as extremely tempting.
Cutlery
Knives, forks and spoons are utensils, but that doesn’t mean that they have to be basic. Modern cutlery is often designed not just to be utilitarian but also to look amazing in terms of shapes and materials. You need cutlery that will not only do its job (take steak knives as an example – not much use if they won’t easily slice through the meat) but also look aesthetically pleasing. You can lift the whole feel of the dining table with the quality of your knives, forks and spoons as well as your serving spoons.
If you’re lucky enough to have some family silver that’s been handed down, then use it, but make sure that the knives have been carefully sharpened!
Glasses
The glasses for aperitifs, wine and digestifs should also be of the highest quality. If you’re planning cocktails to start with, or champagne, go for elegant glasses that suit the drink to be served. The atmosphere that you create will be lifted immediately when you use crystal stemware for your wine. Not only does it look good, but it also has an additional weight to it that makes a solid statement that here is the very best type of wine glass.
Depending on what you are serving for dinner, you may have glasses for both white and red wine, and crystal tumblers for water or soft drinks.
When you’re all winding down at the end of a convivial evening, it’s time to bring out the single malt whisky, and you can add another suggestion of luxury by serving it in a branded whiskey glass. It’s an additional touch of class to let your guests know that they are important and that you are taking the time and effort to give them tableware of the highest standard.
If you are serving water with the dinner – and remember that most luxury restaurants do – pour from an attractive carafe that’s either on the table or on a sideboard.
For the wine, you could consider cut glass carafes rather than just pouring from the bottle. You can always tell people what they are drinking, the grape variety, the domaine and the year, and if someone wants to see the bottle for a little more detail, then you can have it easily to hand. Decanting red wine in particular can give it a chance to breathe and for the aromas and flavours to open up.
The same goes for port, if you plan to serve it with cheese at the end of the dinner. Decanting, especially with a vintage port, means that you can prevent the lees from getting into a glass, and an attractive crystal decanter will show off the rich colour of the drink.
Napkin rings
Another touch of luxury to add to your tableware, napkin rings take your table setting to another level. They are rarely used in day-to-day life – unless you are the Queen – but buying attractive napkin rings sends another signal to your guests that they are in the presence of a dinner party where the host has taken great pains to make the evening very special.
Good-quality tableware that works in aesthetic terms – the cutlery with the plates, the glasses with the decanters – lifts any dinner party from the ordinary to the luxurious. There’s nothing wrong with ordinary, but when you want to make that extra effort to make a really positive impression, it’s worth the preparation that you put into your tableware so that your food and drink are shown off to their best advantage.
