London: Dinner parties may seem like a relaxing feast of good company, conversation and cuisine.
But if new research is to be believed, beneath the surface they have become a battleground of one-upmanship and expense.
An expanding number of competitive cooking programmes and celebrity chefs are apparently feeding the ambitions of dinner party hosts and turning dining tables into battlegrounds as amateur chefs vie to outdo each other.
A new survey has found that more than a quarter of those holding dinner parties admit wanting to outdo their friends when entertaining. They want to serve “restaurant quality food” to their guests — and the costs hosts are prepared to incur have risen with their ambitions.
To impress guests, the average dinner party host will now spend six and a half hours preparing food and lay out an average of £102.17 (Dh625) on food and trimmings. The typical bill has risen by nearly a sixth in the past five years, while one in 10 amateur cooks will spend more than £200 to entertain at home.
Home cooks say that both the pressure and inspiration for their ambitions are cooking programmes on television. Kate Glover, a 30-year-old media executive from London, said: “I’ve always loved entertaining at home, but over the last couple of years dinner parties have become more than just serving three courses of home-cooked food.
“With so many cooking programmes on TV, standards are really high, so it takes a lot to outdo the last dinner party you’ve been to. I take inspiration from programmes like MasterChef for food, and I’m constantly looking for new ideas for entertaining at home so that I can do something my friends haven’t seen or thought of before.”
Hosts are also increasingly keen to experiment with new cooking techniques or ingredients made fashionable by television chefs. The survey found that three- quarters bought ingredients from specialist retailers to impress their guests with the best quality produce.
Mike Perry, owner of Perry & Son butchers in Bristol, said he had seen a significant rise in spending on dinner parties in the past 18 months. “The influence of TV chefs is particularly noticeable as they recommend visiting butchers like us to get hold of more unusual, quality cuts of meat, which are invariably more expensive,” he said. “This is especially true when our customers are entertaining, as they are looking for something that will be impressive, and more indulgent than what they normally pick up in the weekly shop.”
The survey of 1,300 people conducted on behalf of French mustard Maille to mark the launch of its dinner party design service, found men were more likely to spend to show off. Their average dinner party bill is a fifth more than women’s, and they are more likely to shop at a specialist store. However, women put more care into their entertaining, taking nearly a quarter more time to prepare.
