“A perfect dinner party should enchant your guests while making them feel at home,” says event designer Imogen Bailey. “You want to craft a sensory experience that brings people together; one that helps guests feel like they’re part of something special.”
Goals for any gathering, sure, but when it comes to hosting the great American tradition that is Thanksgiving dinner—a holiday that’s often as steeped in interpersonal drama as it is in culinary tradition and familial nostalgia—the desire to create a harmonious occasion can be stronger than ever. After all, you may not be able to control the political discussions that erupt between courses, but you can try to create such a thoughtful experience that it inspires guests to stay on their best behavior. (It’s as the industrial designer Matt Beale said, “Design is about making things good (and then better) and right (and fantastic) for the people who use and encounter them.”)
To that end, Bailey—who hosts a seasonal dinner party called Secret Garden Supper Clubs in the Cote d’Azur—recommends imbuing your own gathering with a strong sense of place. At the recent autumn edition of her series, she worked with local artisans, florists, and chefs to create a feast that celebrated the joys of the local harvest season. “The dinner incorporated the spirit of slow living by focusing on the local produce and flora and fauna of autumn,” says Bailey. “We wanted to tickle guests’ imagination as well as their taste buds.”
Here and above, Bailey shares inspiration and tips for creating your own memorable autumn-inspired dinner party.
Choose a color palette
“To create an elegant take on a fall-themed dinner party, the colors can be inspired by your surroundings—perhaps the wild autumn landscape and light. Think warm rustic tones such as deep reds, amber, ochre and shades of copper. For this dinner, I focused on selecting an array of moody, rustic tones and fresh produce reflecting the vibrancy and richness of autumn.”
Incorporate all the senses
“When choosing flowers, decorations, and place settings for the table, I thought about how the details fit together. A tablescape that’s truly memorable will awaken the senses. It’s all about making sure the centerpiece catches the eye whilst also encouraging guests to touch and smell. Flowers add a fragrant touch to a table; for us, florist Julie Guittard created compositions of warm autumn blooms, wild flowers, berries, and woodland leaves to create a modern interpretation of the autumn theme.”
Make the menu match
“For me, the secret to a perfect autumn menu is to draw inspiration from traditional local dishes with a contemporary twist. Chef Kalice Brun, who created the menu for our dinner, adorned her creations with edible flowers and wild herbs fresh from the hills and valleys of the Mercantour. She crafted a menu featuring an amuse-bouche of mini-aubergines, a reimagined swiss chard soup (a Niçois delicacy, see recipe below), featuring vanilla, pear and borage flowers, a main dish of scallops with a purée of beetroot and ginger, complete with a classic poire Belle-Hélène (see recipe below) for dessert. The menu of fresh local ingredients featured edible flowers of the season and a creative twist on local forgotten recipes.”
Swiss Chard Soup with Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Pears, Vanilla and Garlic Confit
Ingredients
2 sweet potatoes
A bunch of swiss chard
1 leek
3 pears
A bulb of garlic
Crème fraiche
1 vanilla bean
A piece of ginger
Olive Oil from Nice or any mild olive oil
Salt and pepper to season
Sumac (a red spice from the Middle East)
Edible flowers such as borage
Preparation time: 20 min Cooking time:. 40 min Serves 6 people
Method
Heat oven to 220C/200C fan/ gas 7 and put the sweet potatoes in a large roasting tin, drizzle 2 table spoons of olive oil and seasoning of salt, pepper and wild thyme.
Roast the vegetables in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until caramelized and tender. Meanwhile, put the garlic cloves in a small tin, cover them with olive oil and cook them in the oven for 20 minutes. Once roasted, put the garlic flavoured olive oil from the garlic confit cloves in a large deep saucepan. Fry one leek (white and green) over a medium-low heat for about 10 mins until softened. Then add one garlic clove, a piece of ginger and the roasted sweet potatoes. Meanwhile, roll and thinly cut the swiss chard leaves taking out the stem if it’s bigger than the ones we tend to find in Nice. Add to the saucepan and stir to gently incorporate all the ingredients and until the leaves reduce. Take out the vanilla seeds from one vanilla bean and then add it to the mixture along with the vanilla pod. Then add the pre-prepared vegetable stock (water, salt, pepper corn, leek, bay leaf, thyme). Cook for 20 minutes until the swiss chard softens. Use a hand blender to process the soup until smooth. Stir in some crème fraîche, a little more seasoning and reheat until warm. Serve in elegant ceramic bowls topped with some garlic cloves, sumac, and edible flowers.
Poire Belle-Hélène
Ingredients
6 firm but ripe pears, peeled, with stalk still attached
150g caster sugar
6 scoops madagascar vanilla ice cream
Rose petals from Damas and some organic natural rose extract
10 g of Roobois red tea
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 1h30
Serves 6
Ingredients for the spicy chocolate sauce:
300 g dark chocolate (around 65% cacao)
100 ml double cream
100 g butter
Rose water
A mix of spices like cardamom, cinnamon, black pepper, ginger, nutmeg
A pinch of the French chilli "piment d'espelette"
Method
Pour 1.5 litres of cold water into a medium sized pan preferably into a jam pan. Sprinkle the rose petals, add some rose exact, caster sugar and roobois tea.Stir gently and bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally to slowly dissolve the sugar. Gently add the peeled pears and place a piece of baking paper on top to keep them submerged, then simmer gently for 20 minutes the pears are cooked. Then insert a small sharp cutting knife into the pears to test whether they're tender. If not, simmer for a further 5 minutes. When the pears are cooked, leave them to cool in the syrup for at least an hour.
Meanwhile prepare the chocolate sauce by breaking up the chocolate into small pieces and placing it into a bowl. Create a ‘bain marie’ by putting water in a pan and put another bowl on the top so that the chocolate can dissolve slowly.When dissolved, add the butter. Stir. Then add the crème fraiche with the mix of spices and chili pepper and a splash of rose water. Leave to stand for a couple of minutes until it has completely melted, then stir the sauce gently until smooth and keep it warm but without any further cooking (around 70°C).
To serve, remove the pears from the syrup and stand them upright on individual bowls. Pour a generous helping of chocolate sauce over them and serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, if you like and add some edible rose petals.
Chef Kalice Brun's tip: keep the leftover sugar syrup in the fridge to use as a base for fruit salads, cocktails or to marinate some fish or white meat.
https://www.vogue.com/article/thanksgiving-decorating-ideas-french-riviera