TRENDS: SUPPER CLUBS
Written by Abbey Reiser | Reviewed by Adiana Castro, MS, RDN, CDN, CLT
A supper club is a social dining restaurant where groups of people meet in someone’s home for a food experience. Supper clubs are unique to the traditional restaurant and dinner party experiences in that you get the informality of a domestic setting without having to clean, cook, or serve. Guests are also attracted to supper clubs because they give them the opportunity to try new food, generally at an affordable price. Hosts are motivated to open up their homes to this experience not only because it makes them money, but it also allows them to experiment with cooking without having to purchase restaurant property.
Supper clubs have also been referred to as underground restaurants. In New York City, underground supper clubs are nothing new, but many venues are invite-only or entail a long wait list, such as Studiofeast, Forking Tasty, and Dinner Lab. However, now Supper Clubs are becoming less exclusive thanks to online social services, such as BonAppetour, Feastly, Cookapp and EatWith, which allow people to find restaurants and reserve seats in cities all over the U.S. and abroad. For example, through Feastly’s online service, hosts can post their menus online in advance, which gives guests the opportunity to pick a dinner that suits their fancy. Through this service, you can enjoy gourmet Italian cuisine prepared by aspiring chef, Marco Maestoso, and his girlfriend, chef Dalila Eroclani, at their apartment in the Upper East Side. After only a few months, they have already served hundreds of people in their home for $55 per person. You can become a guest of aspiring chefs like Marco and Dalila by signing up for one of the many online supper club services, such as Eatfeastly.com. There is even a supper club phone app, which allows people to create or join supper club groups, share recipes, and post photos of their food experiences.
Now that joining a supper club is a relatively quick and easy process, we encourage you to give this unique culinary experience a try!