How to host the perfect dinner party

This is an audio transcript of the FT Weekend podcast episode: ‘How to host the perfect dinner party’

Lilah Raptopoulos
My colleague Harriet Fitch Little is one of those people who’s outrageously talented at making things beautiful. I’m with her in the London studio, and even though we work together a lot and are internet friends, we’ve just met in person for the first time. I feel that I already know that you are an expert at hosting and making dinner and that like you are an aesthetic genius and you always seem to be carrying a bouquet of wildflowers. And even today you came to the studio and you brought me a little homemade muffin that you had made. You just know what you’re doing.

Harriet Fitch Little
Thank you. (laughter) It feels like those real sort of disgusting, domestic goddess, like I just waft everywhere with, like, flowers and homemade muffins.

Lilah Raptopoulos
(laughter) No, you’re cute. You’re also a genius brain and a complex figure. Harriet recently became our food and drink editor. As you can tell, she’s aware that this whole world of food and drinks can quickly turn into something a bit too precious. But she’s not precious or preoccupied with trends or making things perfect. Harriet’s also like this when it comes to hosting dinner parties, and she’s devoted this week’s entire issue of the FT Weekend magazine to dinner parties as a theme. To her, a great dinner is simple. It’s about having your friends over and creating a really nice time in a way that feels like you.

Harriet Fitch Little
I’m not very good at being the person who sort of, like, turns from person A to person B and says, well, you’ve got this in common. What I prefer being is the person who’s, like, in the kitchen with lots of things, like, boiling over, who can sort of, like, occasionally, like, rush through the door and say something interesting and, like, top up people’s glasses. So I think that’s always what has drawn me to dinner parties as a form of hosting.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Lilah Raptopoulos
Today, Harriet gives us some hard-earned advice for throwing a nice dinner, no matter what your level of cooking or hosting experience is. We’ll also talk about how to put one on without totally losing your mind and also what a dinner party even is and who it’s actually for. This is FT Weekend. I’m Lilah Raptopoulos.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Harriet, welcome to the show.

Harriet Fitch Little
Thank you. It’s so nice to be here.

Lilah Raptopoulos
I’m curious to start, like, how long have you been hosting dinner parties, and what do you like about it?

Harriet Fitch Little
Well, I think we might begin with, like, a difference in terminology, because I was thinking about dinner parties, and I was thinking about the way that you might talk about a dinner party as an American. And I feel like you are imagining a situation where there are lots of people in a room who maybe a couple of them know each other, but basically, like, you’ve curated a group of interesting people who you think will get on.

Lilah Raptopoulos
That is, like, the platonic idea of a dinner party in my head, yes. Like, oh, maybe I could set someone up at this dinner party. Or maybe couples who don’t know each other might like each other at this dinner party.

Harriet Fitch Little
But I would say for the most part, when I talk about hosting dinner, what I am doing is cooking for friends. And I actually I was quite worried that I was just like really sort of like a social shut-in before I came in to record this. So I asked my colleagues on the magazine, like, when you think about having a dinner party, who are you imagining is there? And everyone said that it was friends. And the one person, Cordelia Jenkins, deputy editor of the magazine, said, you know, I know what’s happened here. Lilah is American. My husband is American, also a journalist, and he lives in London, and they are constantly at loggerheads over his definition of a dinner party. Getting a load of people who don’t know each other together in a room. And her definition of a dinner party, which is just like having friends over to have a good time.

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK, so which one should we go with? I think the rules apply and I think . . . 

Harriet Fitch Little
Yeah, I think all the things about hosting, perhaps with the exception of how do you sort of get people talking to each other, are more or less the same because it’s like people having a good time at your house and making them feel that comfortable. That is just like the same across the board.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. OK. So I thought that as we break down, before we break down, sort of like what other elements make up for it in terms of, like, the mood that you set and the food that you could make and the drinks and the wine and all that, I thought that maybe we could each talk through like a dream dinner party that each of us would throw. So not one of those dream parties where alive or dead, you could invite anyone you want. I don’t care. I want something more realistic. There’s, like, a dinner party that you would have at your house with the constraints of your home and sort of just the feeling that you would want to make, that stuff you would cook, the way the table would look.

Harriet Fitch Little
OK. Have you thought of one for yourself as well?

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

Harriet Fitch Little
OK, interesting. So I do think it’s got to be, I would say the run-up to Christmas, maybe sort of late November when everyone’s got that festive feeling, but no one sort of totally, people aren’t going into the season of, like, every night’s a Christmas party. Like, they’ve got a bit of life left in them. All my very good old friends are there. I’d have some music on, but it would be very quiet. I can give a specific album recommendation. I think that Prince’s album, which is called a Piano and a Microphone, which I think was released, it’s like demos that were released after his death, I believe, is the perfect dinner party soundtrack.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Beautiful.

Harriet Fitch Little
But, you know, personal tastes may very.

Lilah Raptopoulos
We’ll put it in the show notes for people.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

OK. Mine is deep winter, like February. Everyone’s sort of . . . 

Harriet Fitch Little
No one’s got anything left to do . . . 

Lilah Raptopoulos
 . . . losing their will to live. Yeah, exactly. But they all want to be cosy and everyone’s around, and they want something to do. And probably, like, eight people squished into my little kitchen, like around my table.

Harriet Fitch Little
Do you want everyone to be a bit on top of each other?

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, like not really enough space so everyone really has to kind of talk. I don’t know who’s going to be there, but I kind of want in some way to have flagged to these friends that they should come in the spirit of having, like, the best night of their life. (laughter) Because I don’t really want to do, I don’t want to talk about how New York is expensive and rent has gone up. I don’t know, but you can’t force that. So that’s just part of my dream scenario.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Harriet Fitch Little
And then . . . 

Lilah Raptopoulos
Food!

Harriet Fitch Little
OK. In my dream, it’s happening on a Saturday evening, and I’ve had the day off work on a Friday, so I’ve already had a day to relax. And I’ve got all of Saturday to do some shopping. I want to be able to enjoy the getting ready and the just sort of like mooching about like listening to a podcast and turning the kitchen into an absolute mess. I think if you are going to do something exciting for a dinner party, like something sort of like, a bit splashy and technical, it probably makes sense to do it more towards the beginning so that you don’t have to disappear halfway through a meal for a really long time. And I think like when people are having drinks anyway, it’s kind of nice to be drifting in and out again. (laughter) It’s just clearly all I want to do, to drift in and out. So I think I’d have some sort of spritz for when people arrive, and ideally a spritz that people sort of like weren’t particularly familiar with, so maybe like Lillet, which is a fortified wine, which makes a delicious spritz, and everyone will say, oh, this is a lovely spritz. Is it Aperol? (laughter) And no. It’s this thing, you know, but also you don’t quite know it, which is like the comfort zone that you’re trying to, like, I guess that you want things that are like comfortable and familiar but also just like a bit different. Yeah, a bit more interesting.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, that’s the sweet spot.

Harriet Fitch Little
And then I would do a lot of dips, and I would not make my own bread. I would buy some nice bread. I probably wouldn’t have separate plates for people eating that. I think, like, having starter plates is maybe just like unnecessary faff. And then I think for the main meal, I was sort of imagining that this is early winter. I don’t think you can do much better than some sort of big bits of meat, some sort of like, hunk of beef or pork or lamb with dauphinoise potatoes and probably some sort of like caramelised carrots. And then I don’t really do desserts.

Lilah Raptopoulos
No? What would you do at the end of the meal?

Harriet Fitch Little
In my dream dinner party, the Turkish shop on my high street hasn’t closed because of extortionate rent hikes. It’s what has just happened in reality. And I would get some of the baklava that they sell there. And we would have that with coffee and probably dessert wine, which I discovered recently. And it’s delicious.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Nice.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Harriet Fitch Little
Tell me what you’re eating.

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK. I’m probably not as good at figuring out like what all of the dishes will be, but I know what my showstopper is going to be. And ugh I did a late winter thing. So actually, this might not be possible, but the showstopper is this Armenian dish called Ghapama, which is this just big pumpkin that’s stuffed with, like, rice and dried fruits. And then you put the whole pumpkin into the oven and then it cooks and then you cut it open. But this is winter, so we’re going to do stuffed cabbage.

Harriet Fitch Little
And because they’re basically delicious.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. And we’ll do stuffed cabbage with like pilaf, so stuffed with meat and rice and spices, and then like a pilaf on the side and then the juice from the meat sort of like, gets the pilaf kind of wet and then probably some, like, big winter salad. And then at the end, maybe there’s like some almond cookies and then like, a bunch of citrus, like oranges and grapefruit just on the table.

Harriet Fitch Little
Oh, nice! Something fresh.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yes, something fresh. And then maybe I’ll do a dessert wine or like an Amaro. And then at the end, maybe we pile all the dishes up, and then I lend everyone a book from my book shelf and then they leave. And then the next day, I don’t work, and I just sit in the mess.

Harriet Fitch Little
That’s, I think after dinner, if I had enough people, I would play Werewolf, which is also known as Mafia. It’s a game that, like, if I tried to explain it, the editors would definitely cut it out because it would be so boring. But it is the most fun to have at a dinner party. If you’ve got about eight people. And otherwise, I’d probably try and teach people how to play a card game like Racing Demon.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Oh, that’s a nice idea. You have a card game at the end of the night.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

So we’ve concocted our dream dinner parties. There’s tons of little tips in it, but I kind of want to break down what we’ve learned. The first being just if we can talk through what to cook. Like you’ve told me that now’s a great time for bad cooks to be good dinner party hosts. Can you tell me why?

Harriet Fitch Little
Well, because if you look at what even restaurants in London are doing, you know, I went out to one of the really fashionable new Italian restaurants in London called Brutto last week, and the starter was, you know, anchovies on sourdough. They charge £10 for it. And this is like the most popular starter they serve and, you know, everyone’s putting it all over their Instagram but it’s anchovies on sourdough. Both those things, one of them comes in a tin and one of them comes from a bakery, so it’s very easy to recreate the sorts of foods that are currently in fashion.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Butter on radishes. (laughter)

Harriet Fitch Little
Butter on radishes. (laughter) So if you’re a bad cook, all you need to do is go to the market and buy some really lovely tomatoes and slice them up and put them on a plate and scatter a few leaves over them. Then you’ve sort of already done lots of restaurants in London are doing.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right. Salt. Olive oil. That’s it. Yeah. Great. Could you give us some other examples of sort of simple dishes that could work well together on a table for a dinner party?

Harriet Fitch Little
Well, I think you just need to work out what the main thing you want to cook and sort of put all your attention on to that and then just put a few things that are, like, simple but eye-catching around the outside. So if you want to do something like, you know, you buy a whole fish, which looks sort of terrifying, but it’s actually like very easy to cook.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yes. And kind of a showstopper.

Harriet Fitch Little
And a showstopper. Yeah. And you just put that on a bed of potatoes. Then all you need to serve with that is, you know, an easy like green salad and everyone will be very happy. I also think if you really can’t cook at all, then I believe that, you know, fondue is always due for a comeback. And it sort of fits with your idea of a dinner party, which is lots of people sort of hunched cosily around a tiny table eating fondue. You’ve got to be like close, almost too close for comfort with the heating bills going up. It’s probably quite a good one. And I actually think you can just like you can cook anything, can’t you? Because what we’re talking about is just like putting a meal on the table. The people are happy to be there. The only thing, and maybe Americans don’t do this in the same way, but I think the only thing that makes me feel really miserable at a dinner party is when the person who’s done all the cooking spends all that time like apologising for the cooking. Imagine you’re in a restaurant and like the waiter puts stuff down and was just like, oh, sorry, the kitchen had a bad night tonight. And, like, this isn’t, like, this didn’t turn out how we wanted it to. (laughter)

Lilah Raptopoulos
I also wanted to sort of focus in on drinks. You said that in your dream dinner party it was a spritz but not with an Aperol but something a little more mysterious. What . . . after that, what happens? Are you doing cocktails? Are you assuming wine? Are you, are people bringing a case of beer?

Harriet Fitch Little
So I think I’ve totally changed my thinking on this by virtue of having spent a lot of, you know, earlier this summer working on this huge wine issue of the magazine with our wine critic Jancis Robinson. Because I think previously what I have said to you is I normally try and have a bottle of white and a bottle of red in. And other than that, sort of like take what people gave me. I think now I probably would try and think about the wine and try and like serve a consistent wine like a couple of bottles of the same thing and to have across the majority of a meal. It sounds so pretentious, but I’m just gonna say it: I’ve been drinking a lot of Pinot Noir recently.

Lilah Raptopoulos
That’s allowed. It’s good.

Harriet Fitch Little
And I think that’s a nice red to have because it’s light enough that, you know, anyone who doesn’t like anything sort of really like full bodied is going to be fine with it. And perhaps it like goes a bit more easily with some things you might see as white wine foods. So I guess probably what I do now, post my sort of wine discovery this summer is get a couple of bottles of that in and then if other people want to drink other things, then they can bring it. You see, what I’ve done for most of the time is just, like, leave the alcohol to other people.

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Lilah Raptopoulos
OK, so we got food. We have vibe. We have drink. This question isn’t for me because I have FOMO all the time, and I’m happy for people to basically end up sleeping over if they want to. But for the introverts among us or for the people who like personal space, how do you politely get someone to leave at the end of your dinner party?

Harriet Fitch Little
Well, I believe that you actually already kind of have answered this question for yourself, Lilah.

Lilah Raptopoulos
I give everybody a book.

Harriet Fitch Little
Yes! This is it. Like, I have learned that the best way, the nicest way to get people to leave, which is also fine, by the way, I’m not saying like I hated them being there in the first place. I loved them being there. Like, it’s not this sort of like, oh, isn’t it terrible having people over? But it is good for people to leave. And the thing you always need to say is, oh, before you go, I really wanted to . . . And in your case, it is give them a book. But I think there’s normally something that you’ve spoken about over the course of an evening that you sort of like genuinely would like to find or remember or . . . 

Lilah Raptopoulos
I wanted to get you that name of that wine I liked or whatever.

Harriet Fitch Little
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, beyond that, I’ve got no idea. Like, a person who doesn’t sort of pick up on that as a hint, then you know, I’m as lost as you are. I’ll probably like, yeah, find them sleeping on my sofa the next morning.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. My last question, Harriet, is we’ve talked a little bit about this, but how do you make sure you’re having a good time at your own party? How do you make sure you’re not overwhelmed that it feels at the end, like, I’m glad I did that. I’m glad I brought people together and I feel like we are connected in some way.

Harriet Fitch Little
Yeah, I think most people get overwhelmed but not by the bit where people are there. They get overwhelmed by the bit beforehand with sort of like thinking about it, and they’ve got to cook. And, you know, I told my partner that I was coming on to record this with you, and he said, like, I’d have to tell you, you don’t have to bake your own breads, which has become a saying in our relationship, but like you do not have to do the most. But references a specific occasion where I had like a couple of people coming over very casually, and I’d had an extremely busy week at work. And I got up at five in the morning and he sort of like found me when he got up at seven crying over the focaccias. I was genuinely poking holes in the focaccia. And my tears were filling along with the salt. He was like, “What are you doing?” He said, “You don’t have to make focaccia!” It’s an obvious thing to say.

Lilah Raptopoulos
But sometimes you need to hear it.

Harriet Fitch Little
Sometimes you need to hear it. So I think basically it’s about, like, working out, like, what form of preparing for a meal you’ll enjoy and basically, like trying to do that version of it because there are also so many things you can buy that people like. You know, I said before that I like getting baklava for dessert. Or if there’s someone near to you that does really nice bread, like, that’s a lovely thing that you can actually buy. And like if you want to make it special, you can say, you know, I got this bread from this place that’s really nice. Like, it’s lovely bread. And that’s a sort of nice an effort to have gone to as having, like, baked it with your own tears. That really was a one off. (laughter)

Lilah Raptopoulos
(laughter) So be easy on yourself.

Harriet Fitch Little
Be easy on yourself. Just like there is no point in doing this thing if you’re not having a good time. The reason I like hosting dinner parties is that I don’t just enjoy having people over, I enjoy spending a day watching a film, listening to a podcast like slowly bringing a meal together in the kitchen, having an excuse to tidy my flat. So if you’re not sort of getting those things out of it, then don’t do it. Go to a restaurant instead.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, maybe my very last question is when can I come to your house for a dinner party? (laughter)

Harriet Fitch Little
(laughter) Unfortunately, I moved out of London, so most of my dinner parties now are with my 80-year-old neighbours and that brings with it a whole other set of sort of, you know, dietary restrictions and challenges that are very different from the ones that you encounter in London.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, well, OK.

Harriet Fitch Little
You can join us.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Sounds really fun, and I will be there. Harriet, this is such a delight. Thank you for being on the show.

Harriet Fitch Little
Thank you.

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Lilah Raptopoulos
That’s the show this week. Thank you for listening to FT Weekend, the Life and Arts podcast of the Financial Times. I put links to some of our favourite pieces from this dinner party special in the show notes, and you should also be on the lookout for a new series that Harriet is starting in our food and drink section called The Table. It’s where different chefs suggest a whole plan for a dinner party, and it’s a way of looking at cooking holistically, not just one recipe or just tips for the best flatware, but the whole thing. Kind of like we’ve done here today. I’m away for the next few weeks, and our producer Lulu Smyth will be hosting. We’ve got some amazing guests lined up for you. Next week, Lulu is talking to the author Andrew Lipstein. He wrote an extremely buzzy book that she loved called, The Vegan. As you know, we love chatting with you. The show is on Twitter at @FTWeekendPod, and I am on Instagram and Twitter, but mostly chatting about culture with you on Instagram, @lilahrap. I am Lilah Raptopoulos, and here is my talented team. Katya Kumkova is our senior producer. Lulu Smyth is our producer. Molly Nugent is our contributing producer. Our sound engineers are Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco. With original music by Metaphor Music. Topher Forhecz is our executive producer. Monique Mulima is our intern, and our global head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. Have a wonderful weekend, and we’ll find each other again next week.