Having some friends round for dinner? Follow our failsafe guide and they'll be hoping for a repeat invitation!
For a dinner party six or eight guests is a good number – any more and you will struggle to cook, serve the food and eat it yourself! If you want to invite more, consider a buffet where the food is generally simpler and most of the work is done beforehand.
Dinner parties lend themselves to themes. For instance, you can buy themed dinner packs, such as Murder Mystery, or Dinner with the Mafia, where your guests will be transported back to 1930s New York. The pack comes with invitations, place cards, menu suggestions and even a CD of music from the time. Or why not have a Spanish evening, with tapas, sangria and flamenco music playing in the background?
What's on the menu?
Pick the main course first, then select a starter and a dessert that will work well with it. Avoid very hot curries unless you know your guests enjoy them. Why not cook something with some seasonal ingredients so they’ll be really fresh? Think about how the meal will look, and if you’re having a three-course meal, try not to repeat ingredients such as fish or the same meat for two courses.
Do yourself a favour by selecting dishes where you can do a lot of preparation beforehand, leaving you as free as possible to entertain your guests.
Practise cooking any dishes if you haven’t cooked them before so they'll be just right – this way you'll know how long they will take to prepare and cook.
Here are some recipes that would work well for a dinner party:
Red meat
Greek Beef Stew with Dumplings
Lamb Cutlets with Apricot and Aubergine Relish
Chicken
Chicken Saltimbocca
Mediterranean Roast Chicken
Normandy Chicken
Orange Chicken with Herby Rice
Pot-roast Chicken
Pork
Cajun Pork with Pineapple Salsa
Pot-roasted Pork with Apple and Celeriac Mash
Fish
Herb-stuffed Salmon with Roasted Vegetables
Tiger Prawns with Goat's Cheese Pappardelle
Vegetarian
Courgette Frittata
Herby Stuffed Tomatoes
Large Pasta Shells with Walnut Pesto
Moroccan Vegetable Stew
And for dessert...
Almond Ice Cream
Cassata Siciliana
Chocolate Meringues
Zabaglione
Search our recipes for more inspiration.
The intimacy of a dinner party means you can make a bit more effort with place settings. Baking biscuits or cupcakes iced with each guest’s name is a nice touch. And why not lay the table the traditional way?
Raise a glass
Wine is the traditional choice of drink for dinner parties, but be sure to have soft drinks available too – a non-alcoholic cocktail such as our Hawaiian Hula Punch will keep the sense of occasion without the units.
As far as wine quantities go, plan for each guest to consume half a bottle of wine during the main course. Not sure which wine will go with your menu? Our food and wine matching page will help you out; and be sure to have a look at our tips on serving and storing wine, too.
The day before
Make a list of ingredients – including any you may need to buy fresh on the day. Write a timetable of everything you have to do before the dinner party, including dressing yourself and cleaning the house – that way, you’ll remain in control. While the food is the focus, the best dinner parties are just as much about the atmosphere and the conversation!
Games to play
Games help to break the ice if you’ve got guests who don’t know each other very well, or if, heaven forbid, conversation runs dry – plus they’re fun to play. Here are some ideas to have up your sleeve:
Pass each guest a small folded piece of paper, on which you have written an unusual word, such as anteaters or moonwalking, for each guest. Then explain the game: each guest should read the word on the piece of paper and not show or tell anyone else. Each guest must use it in the flow of normal conversation as naturally as possible within the next 30 minutes. Any guest that suspects another guest has used their word must shout the word out – the winner is the one who doesn’t get rumbled!
Ask a guest to say a celebrity’s name. The guest to his/her right must name a celebrity whose first name begins with the first letter of the first celebrity’s surname, and so on. A celebrity whose first name and surname begin with the same letters means the game changes direction. If anyone pauses for too long or repeats a celebrity name they are out of the game. This is a good game to choose if you want to give people forfeits or dares!
Another classic is the memory game. It works like this: the first guest begins by saying something like: “I went camping in Wales, and I took a tent,” then the next guest repeats the whole sentence and adds something on the end: “I went camping in Wales, and I took a tent, my favourite teddy bear,” and the game carries on around the table, with each guest adding something else to the list. If someone omits one of the items they are out.
Party trivia... Traditionally, tea would be a light snack served in late afternoon, with sandwiches and cakes, while dinner was a formal meal, served in the evening.