Supper clubs are gathering steam, so what does it take to host one?

Eating with friends promotes connection and happiness, so it’s no surprise intimate supper clubs are gaining momentum. Carly Gibbs pulls up a chair to learn how they work with the Bay of Plenty’s ‘feast queen’, Rose Kennedy.

When self-described feast queen Rose Kennedy married her husband Matt in March, they officially became “Mr and Mrs Dining Table”.

Friends bestowed the title because the Tauranga woman runs supper clubs in private homes throughout the Bay of Plenty, Waikato, and sometimes the wider North Island. She met Matt, her chief taste tester, when they were teens working at KFC.

Supper clubs have become a popular alternative to the restaurant scene, offering a more familial night out.

More commonly known by her Instagram handle @rosesdiningtable, the 32-year-old will come into your home to cook for you and your guests, supply tableware and dim lighting, and wash the dishes, often with teammates.

If partygoers wish to kick on, glassware is collected the next morning.

Her supper clubs aren’t just a regular dinner party but a vibrant, soulful, wildly delicious feast set on one of her storybook-style maximalist tablescapes with the perfect amount of “kook”.

Think flowers by Pāpāmoa’s Aster & Bloom: roses, fragrant daffodils, gerberas and orchids. Tulle bows, pearls, candles shaped like fruit, sculptures made from oranges and cabbages, eclectic mismatched plates from op shops, hand-blown glassware, and ceramic chequered-pattern cutlery; the setting alone evokes conversation and is a sensory experience.

Disorganised chaos is the vibe.

“More is more,” Kennedy says. “Crazy, bright, floral. I’ve never been beige. I take inspiration from colour. I love to look at something and feel like it’s got life.”

Added to that is down-to-earth food with big flavours.

Que: Pops champagne and puts on comfy pants

The dinner party has been reinvented post-Covid, and there has been a rise in midweek supper clubs for special occasions and “just because”. She recently catered for a hen’s party on a Thursday.

Her clients are all ages, but she’s particularly noticed a trend among 20 and 30-somethings who are shifting away from club culture and want to connect intimately around a long table, chatting, eating, and oftentimes favouring kombucha over vino.

On social media, Gen Z romanticises having friends over by picturing vibrant-styled tables with coloured taper candles and vintage glasses in preparation for bubbles over bolognese.

And who cares when you last cleaned your skirting boards? Life is too short not to have people over, she says.

“They will remember the warmth they felt sitting around a table, drinking too much wine and arguing over the last piece of focaccia.”

Quality time gained from supper clubs is a “love language”. “You sit down with people you haven’t seen in six months, and you’re not going to be on your phone; you’re going to sit, talk, and enjoy a slow meal.”

She also hosts public Soirée Society Supper Clubs, where strangers can enjoy the same epicurean experience — but at ever-changing venues. Little touches, like questions on the back of name cards, can encourage conversation and new friendships.

Forget run-of-the-mill — diners want experience, memories

Tauranga event company Kitchen Takeover has since gone national with the supper club concept — an upcoming collaboration with chefs Kārena and Kasey Bird will headline August’s Wellington on a Plate festival following a sell-out event in Auckland in May.

Co-owner Jess Easton is delighted to see the concept growing and the success of businesses like Rose’s Dining Table.

“Good food is all about an experience and an emotion and is far more than just producing a technically correct dish,” she says.

“We spend as much time on the ambience as we do on the menu, and our customers love that we encourage communal eating, that we craft wine and non-alcoholic matches to suit the food and that we send them home with amazing memories. That personal touch is at the heart of everything we do, and the more options people have to dine like that, the better it is for our city and our foodie culture.”

Kitchen Takeover has been running for nearly seven years, with the first supper club-style event held in February 2018.

It uses professional stylists to transform whole venues — turning a rugby club into a Parisian streetscape, for example, or a downtown function space into a Brazilian carnival. Some dinners use narration, others have audiovisual components, and liberal use of texture, taste, smell, and sound makes it a fully immersive experience.

Stacey Jones, chairwoman of Tauranga’s Flavours of Plenty Festival, says we crave exclusive food experiences fuelled by what we see online.

“We’re becoming more worldly and cultured and want experiences, not just meals.”

Diners are selective when spending money, but in exchange for a “memory”, they are willing to pay a little more.

She says those doing well in the food industry are doing things that aren’t run-of-the-mill or just doing one thing well.

“It will become increasingly important with Gen Z, who want novelty and originality.”

Pop-up restaurants in Tauranga like Mexa, Amador, Rika Rika, and Authentico offer private dining, as do caterers No Biggie Food. Top private chefs like Madeleine Hughes, who trained at Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in Paris and has worked on superyachts, also offer their services for local, at-home dining.

Kennedy, in comparison, is a self-taught cook with an extensive repertoire. She makes everything from satay tofu spring rolls in crispy cos to gooey blue and mushroom arancini balls and dark Ghana choccy pudding with salted cream and sour raspberry.

Bespoke menus; oohs and ahhs

“I’ve always been obsessed with food. Like, obsessed,” she says.

Eight years ago, she learned to cook in London while cash-strapped on her OE. She discovered cooking wasn’t just fun, she was good at it.

When she returned to settle in Tauranga, she started hosting dinner parties for friends. Then, she got requests from their friends.

She doesn’t have set menus; instead, she creates a bespoke three-course menu ($125 per person with BYO drinks) for every client.

“It makes it more special. I’ve got a 90th coming up, and [the client] loves Italian. I’ll cook her what she loves.”

She grew up painting and writing and woke up last year knowing she had to make a career change to stop feeling uninspired. Her supper club was a passion project she made fulltime in November when she quit her corporate sales job. She does about three monthly supper clubs ranging from eight to 35 people.

Her business embodies her artsy persona, extending to the large garden canvases she paints and her one-of-a-kind wedding dress, made by Auckland’s Brooke Tyson and featuring hundreds of lifelike 3D roses.

Leaving the safety net of a comfortable career was scary, especially because she’d recently had her first child and was going all in with a foodie business in a shaky economy.

“I’m thankful for everyone who’s sat at my table, licking their plates clean and drinking just the right amount of bubbles,” she says.

“The oohs and ahhs, the unbuttoning of the top button of the jeans, the requests to take the leftovers home. It fills me with so much joy.”

Go to: rosesdiningtable.co.nz

Carly Gibbs is a weekend magazine writer for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post and has been a journalist for two decades. She is a former news and feature writer, for which she’s been both an awards finalist and winner.