4 Genius Dinner Party Tips for Banquet Beginners

08 Aug 2023

When all your friends have old-money class, new-money drive or just great cooking skills, hosting a dinner party that matches their expectations can be hard. Guests reminisce about good banquets like the Rothschilds’ surreal gatherings and George Clooney’s legendary feasts for good reason.

Unfortunately, not every homeowner shares their finesse. When you organise home-cooked meals, do you forget to pick up the Waitrose gateaux, welcome arrivals with cranberry sauce down your front and spend your whole evening meal fretting over something smoking in the oven? It happens to the best of us.

Organising a memorable dinner party is stressful when you don’t know what you’re doing but it gets easier once you've cracked the formula. Part art, part science, thriving as a host is simply a process that requires you to understand four simple dinner party tips, as you will discover.

Plan Your Dinner Party Meals

The idiom “failing to prepare is preparing to fail” is just as relevant for planning dinner party menus as it is for entrepreneurship or warfare. Indeed, when it comes to dinner parties, it’s essential to arrange:

• Your guestlist
• Your ingredients
• Your after-food activities
• And lots more!

So, send invitations, choose a dinner party theme, select background music, ask about allergies, freeze ice for cocktails, buy fresh produce and slice it all in advance. Also practice cooking your courses to work out timings, even if your planned meals are easy dinner party recipes.

Flying by the seat of your pants may be tempting but it creates unnecessary risk and stress. And pre-chopped ingredients don’t even have to get in the way, providing you have a secure pantry or larder. Our Sigma 3 corner pantries are useful on this front, making use of usually inaccessible places.

Use a Kitchen Island or Table

Whether you’re planning a lunch party, a summer dinner party, a Mother’s Day lunch, a Christmas dinner party, or you have a unique dinner theme, staging your dining scene effectively will elevate the experience.

For example, house your guests around a table or a mobile kitchen island with seating and you’ll optimise for conversation. Place extroverts in the middle and yourself near the kitchen door. That way, they’ll keep chat flowing and you’ll minimise disruption whenever you check on your quiche or soufflé.

According to Scientific American, proximity to nature reduces tension and improves concentration. So, also consider posting diners near a window, or host a garden dinner party, and you’ll improve your chances of getting them to abandon their screens. And if that doesn’t work, seat them near your wine shelf rack!

Take Your Guests on a Journey

Hosts invest a lot of time in their dinner party menus, but don’t forget that food is only half the battle. Where you feed guests is just as important as what you feed them. Indeed, leading researchers have found that round furniture helps guests unwind and carpets cause families to visit relatives for longer in hospitals.

Setting is important. So, imagine the impact of the standard dinner party setting: a rectangular table on a tiled floor. This setup is practical for a main course but is it necessary for aperitifs, dessert and drinks? Not in every case. But where else you could relocate your guests throughout their stay?

How about near a separate cocktail cabinet atop a homely rug? That’s certain to relax them. At Sigma 3, we provide a variety of tall drinks cabinets and kitchen dresser units. Most contain hanging wine glass racks and cocktail shelves, plus water bottle storage space and shelves for wine bottles.

Play Dinner Party Games

Delicious dishes can save your night when hosting a dinner party but only revelry and entertainment will give your dinner party guests an experience they’ll remember forever. The Victorians knew this and played creative parlour games for that reason, often while quaffing brandy and wine.

Hence, if you want to raise your dinner party’s fun gage, organise games for after you eat. Researchers at the University of Minnesota claim “higher ceilings encourage people to […] make more abstract connections.” So, hosting them in high-ceilinged rooms can help churn up a bit of wit and hilarity.

Remember that Franklin quote about planning? It’s important but it’s also helpful to factor in Einstein’s wisdom for best results: “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” This is especially true when it comes to dinner parties. In short, plan to win but be flexible and you’ll have a better time.

One way to ensue you stay present is to leave the clean-up until after guests depart. Integrated kitchen bins can expedite the process. Fitting inside a cabinet, our pull-out kitchen bins make waste disposal easier, using a kitchen bin drawer system and a carbon filter to reduce unwanted scents. Altogether, they save you time carrying food waste, giving you more time to make memories.

Consult a Dinner Party Expert

Follow this article's suggestions and you’ll throw a wonderful dinner party both you and your diners will love. What’s that, though? You need help designing the perfect kitchen to implement these tactics? If that’s the case, find your nearest Sigma 3 showroom and meet a world-class design consultant, or become a Sigma 3 Insider. As an Insider, you’ll get regular design tips and lifestyle guides – all free.

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