the ultimate guide to holding world class dinner parties

there is nothing lamer than a ill-planned dinner

So you want to throw a dinner party?

if you’re gonna put in the effort to host some people, might as well make it world class. after throwing hundreds of dinner partners and attending a gazillion others, i can confirm that the following post is the absolute best way to through a dinner party.

it matters WHERE it is

best place to host a dinner party is at your home — even if you live in a tiny, cramped apartment. you want to control as much of the environment as possible. REALLY important that everyone can hear each other really well. ACOUSTICS MATTER.

if not at your home, find a small private room in a restaurant (must be one where the door remains closed). or rent an airbnb.

the best dinners are one-conversation

all dinners should have one-conversation. any dinner that is not one-conversation is not worth going to and not worth hosting — those dinners are rarely ever good.

a one-conversation dinner needs a moderator who keeps the conversation going, asks good questions, and cuts people off from boring others.

because the best dinners are one conversation, the dinner needs to be small (12 people max) and should be in a room where everyone can hear one another.

if you have more than 12 people, split people up in two tables with different moderators.

only people with small minds host dinners with speakers. speakers are almost always BORING. if you are not the speaker, why would you go to a dinner with a speaker? you wouldn’t unless you have nothing better to do. I went to the White House Correspondents' Association dinner once and was bored out of my mind (though I at least got to amortize my tux and take some fun photos with my wife). in fact, the only reason people go to the White House Correspondents' Association dinner is to brag to other people that you went to the White House Correspondents' Association dinner (in fact, I’m doing that right now).

the second-worst dinners are fundraisers and the WORST dinners are fancy auctions — do everything possible to avoid those dinners and just write a check to the charity instead. in fact, write the check and then invite your nemesis to take your place at the table.

it really matters who you invite and how you invite.

invite in series, not parallel. get the few people to commit so you can use their name to get others. dinners take planning and you need to invite people slowly. the invite should list clearly the location, time, and topic of the dinner.

people LOVE going to small one-conversation dinners — so definitely let people know this is a SMALL dinner and will be one conversation — you will get a much higher quality of participant.

if you invite someone to your home for dinner, you will be surprised that most people will be really happy to be invited. a well know person told me “when I was younger, I thought that all these amazing dinner salons happened all the time and I just was not being invited. now I know they rarely happen.”

all the attendees of the dinner should be excited to meet one another. so they should all be at a similar level. it is ok if you are hosting someone special … just make sure that person wants to meet everyone at the dinner.

themes and questions on the dinner

all dinners should have a theme. ideally 1-3 questions that you send out ahead of time so that everyone can think of some good things to share ahead of time.

some people think that the best way to get good answers is to spring crazy questions on people to get the most spontaneous response. that’s 100% wrong. spontaneous answers are rarely better than one’s that were thought out. give them at least a day to think it through — if they are still boring than it is their fault.

things to do BEFORE the dinner

• send a list of participants to everyone attending. no reason for the list of people to be a surprise. include a one-line bio of each person.

• send list of questions they can prepare for

• remind people location and start time

• tell people the end-time

• make sure you collect people’s dietary restrictions

the least important thing is the food

the food is not important. remember those great dorm-room discussions over left-over pizza and keystone light? repeat: food you serve is not important. take-out is totally fine. you can cook too. you can have your super-fancy chef too — whatever — just do something that fits your personality and budget.

wine does not matter either. neither is the cleanliness of your home. the flowers don’t matter either. anyone who really cares about any of these is inversely correlated to being a great dinner guest.

things to do AT the dinner

• we covered this already but good reminder: have one-conversation and a moderator

• have a specific end time for the dinner and stick to it

• get photo of everyone at the dinner and send to them afterwards

• bonus: give a little gift to everyone.

the best dinners have LOTS of laughter

if it is a lunch or a board meeting, then get down to a business. power-breakfast on a tuesday: business, business, business. dinners can be both intellectually interesting and fun. the more laughter, the better.

chatGPT seems to think that all men have hipster beards. prompt: “photo of ten interesting people having fun at a dinner party in someone's home”

things to do AFTER the dinner

next day: send everyone's name, bio and email (and the photo) — so they can get in touch. they just spent a couple of hours together and bonded. now give them an opportunity to connect.

next steps

and make sure to invite me to your next fun one-conversation dinner. i will be there.

if you want more thoughts on hosting a dinner party, my good friend Fabrice Grinda also wrote a great primer.