One dish you can cook with your eyes closed, one drink made in a jug, candles, a playlist and the discipline to sit down. The dinner that makes people want to come back.
The dinner party is the most generous thing a man can do with a Saturday and the one social skill that improves every other. It is also easy to get wrong, usually by ambition: four courses, a new recipe, a host who spends the evening in the kitchen while his guests talk to each other. The rule is simple. Cook one thing you have cooked ten times, do everything else in advance, and be at the table.
The menu
Something that can be made ahead and finished in the oven while you pour drinks: a braise, a roast, a large fish baked whole, a lamb shoulder that has been in the oven since four. Before it, something on a board that needs no plate: good ham, a cheese, olives, bread, radishes with butter and salt. After it, cheese and a tart from a good bakery, or one dessert you can make the day before. Three courses, one of them cooked. Nobody has ever left a dinner complaining that there was not a fourth.
The drinks
One cocktail made in a jug before anyone arrives: a Negroni, a Martini kept in the freezer, a Whisky Sour batched and shaken to order. Then wine, two bottles of the same white and three of the same red for six people, chosen with the dish and opened before the guests arrive. Water on the table without asking. Coffee and a bottle of something brown afterwards. That is the entire bar for the evening and it costs less than one course in a restaurant.
Guests do not remember the food. They remember whether the host was at the table. Cook something that lets you sit down.
The table
A cloth or a bare wooden table, cloth napkins, the same glasses for everyone, candles at eye level and the overhead light off. Nothing tall in the middle that blocks the view. Place cards if the guests do not all know each other, seating couples apart and the shy next to the talkative. Six is the right number: one conversation, not two, and a table that fits in a normal room.
The timing
Invite for half past seven, expect people at eight, sit down at half past eight. The board and the first drink cover the hour. The main dish goes in the oven when the first guest arrives and comes out when you sit. Cheese at ten, dessert at half past, coffee at eleven. Play music from a system in the room, not a phone speaker, at a level that lets people talk: jazz, soul, something without lyrics that demand attention, a playlist of four hours made the day before.
The mistakes
Trying a new recipe. Not doing the shopping the day before. A host who drinks the cocktail hour like a guest. Standing up during the main course. Clearing plates while people are talking. Asking about work. Ending too early; the good dinners are the ones where nobody notices it is one in the morning. And not doing it again next month, because the second dinner is easier than the first and the sixth is when your house becomes the one people hope to be invited to.
Questions we get asked
What if someone is vegetarian?
Ask when you invite, and cook something they can eat as the main dish rather than as an afterthought. A large baked dish of vegetables, beans and cheese feeds everyone and offends nobody.
How much wine?
Half a bottle per person plus one spare, so five for six people, plus the cocktail. If it runs out, you have chosen your friends well.
Should I clean up during?
Clear between courses, quickly, with one helper, and stack in the kitchen. Wash nothing until the last guest has left. A host at the sink is a host who has left the party.
