Source: Pexels

No Nasty Surprises!

If you planned a gourmet cheese collection for dessert, but now your guests have gone vegan or become lactose-intolerant, this could put a dampener on the whole evening. People might have made significant changes to their lives since you saw them last, so check upfront if there's anything they can’t eat, and at the very least try to make at least two of the courses suitable for everybody. 

Don't Overreach Your Skills

You may like the idea of a ramen bowl with buckwheat noodles, tamagoyaki, and a miso sauce, but if you've only just opened the recipe on Google a few minutes ago, this will only cause disaster. The best thing to do is to try a recipe you are confident with. Leave the experiments for another time. 

Balance the Menu 

Think about how each meal goes together. Think of your starter as a very light affair, followed by a hearty main, and a dessert that falls somewhere in between. If you are being ambitious, and intend on doing the full seven-course Italian meal, think about how your guests would cope with this volume of food. Think about textures with each dish. If you made a quiche for a starter, pie for main, and then a tarte au citron for dessert, this is way too much pastry! It's always a good idea to choose a theme, and pick dishes with different textures.

Plan Your Cooking Times

It's not just about your preparation time, but about how much space you will need, and get in your heads the overall ebb and flow of the evening. You may be cooking food, but you also need to entertain the guests as well. 

Choose Professional Dishes That Are Easy to Make

When we look at restaurant classics like panna cotta or beef Wellington, they don't have to be as complicated to cook as you think. There is a finesse to some of these, but if you want to score extra brownie points with your guests, professional dishes are the way to go! And on the topic of professional dishes, if you have a guest that scrutinizes whether each item of food is homemade, you don't have to overreach. It's very easy to get cheese straws, ice cream, or chutneys from the store. However, just making one of these can be easy work, and is a nice way to impress people. 

Source: Pexels

Dinner parties are scary things! The fact is, when we prepare our food at the end of a long day, we don't have to put too much thought into it and doesn’t have to look amazing, or even when we pick up a pizza, it doesn’t need to look like a piece of art. But follow some of these guidelines, and you will be Magnifique!

Thank you so much for reading these quick tips on hosting an amazing post-covid dinner party! Are you ready to start having friends over for dinner again? If so, what will you be serving them? Let me know in the comments section below (after following my blog, of course...) along with any other feedback, questions or queries that you may have - I love hearing from you guys! Until next time, Marina Rosie x