A Millennial’s Guide To Hosting A Dinner Party
A Millennial’s Guide To Hosting A Dinner Party
Hosting a dinner party – This Millennial’s Cheatsheet
The idea of hosting a dinner party fills me with fear. Do you get that feeling too? It just seems like such a stressful thing to attempt to do, especially when going out to a restaurant is so easy.
Although I’ve thought about hosting a dinner party in the past, the inevitable questions always come up: what do I make? How do I cook and be a good host at the same time? What if it sucks?
I’m hosting a cheese party at mine this weekend and I’m already freaking out – and its just cheese! I don’t have those enviable wooden cheese boards, fancy knives or elegant glassware, and that’s just the start.
Luckily, I think I’m pretty set when it comes to ingredients – there’s this great cheese shop near mine, and I’ll probably pop to Gail’s for some of their incredible bread. But having to think about doing something more intricate than arranging cheese is a concern that I’d rather just avoid altogether.
So you can imagine my delight when I realised I could basically sub-contract all the hard work to someone else for the night. And I mean all of it.
Hosting a dinner party with a private chef
Ta-da! Why didn’t I think of this before? Probably because I thought that it would be so prohibitively expensive that a restaurant would be better. I was wrong.
For a dinner party of 6, our private chef from La Belle Assiette charges £39 a head. The price goes up or down depending on how many people you intend to invite, and there are also various menus and chefs available for a range of different prices.
As part of the price, the private chef will shop for all the ingredients, do all of the prep work, cook in your kitchen, serve everything, clear the plates and do the dishes at the end of the night.
I mean – how perfect is that? It’s exactly the sort of perfect dinner party that a Millennial like me has always dreamed of #swoon.
So what do La Belle Assiette do?
In their own words, La Belle Assiette are a collection of chefs whose job it is ‘to make entertaining at home truly enjoyable’.
For a set price per head, a chef from La Belle Assiette will basically take all the hard work and stress out of hosting a dinner party.
Having just hosted a dinner party with Virgil Naslenas, an incredibly talented chef from La Belle Assiette, I can honestly say that all my fears and worries and burdens around hosting a dinner party were alleviated.
I never once touched a pot, pan or raw ingredient, or wondered if the bread was dry, if the steak was cooked properly or if the ice cream would melt before it got to the table.
In fact I got to wear my highest heels and my most plush velvet-pleated dress, and didn’t have to sweat a single thing.
The whole night was a success, the food was great, and the chef was impeccable.
What did we have to eat?
Our evening began with the best of nibbles – gougères of delicate choux pastry and cheese.
After these were finished the chef invited us to head to the dinner table, where the menu properly began. To start, we had a lovely rare roast blue fin tuna salad niçoise with quail’s eggs.
We then moved on to mains of roast fillet of beef. These gorgeous ruby-red slices were served with decadent Dauphinoise potatoes, seasonal vegetables and a rich jus.
Delicious! This was then followed by individual apple Tart Tatin with Chantilly cream. Drizzled across the top was a lush caramel sauce, and a crisp hazelnut praline. Yum.
Oh, and we also had these wonderfully chewy canelé as petit fours…
READ MORE:
Venison doughnuts, soft shell crabs and silky, spiced chocolate puddings at Gunpowder, Spitalfields
Would we do it again?
Yes, in a heartbeat! La Belle Assiette have made hosting at home fun again – and very price accessible too. I can’t wait for my next dinner party :)
The Details
La Belle Assiette
Website – La Belle Assiette
Our experience of La Belle Assiette was complimentary. This does not affect our review in any way. All views are our own and as ever we aim to provide useful and honest feedback.
Sounds like an awesome experience! Now… do they do the dishes for you too?! x
Haha yep they do the dishes too – pretty cool right :)