"Is there a platonic ideal for a medium-sized gathering of people? The cocktail hour has plenty to recommend it, including a lack of fixed seating and the ability to dazzle guests with a good drinks selection. But there's a drawback to that as well: even if a cocktail hour is not capped at exactly 60 minutes, it's still an inherently brief function. Dinner parties address that issue, but also require a"
"lot more work - and can sometimes go on for a little too long. There's a reason filmmaker Luis Buñuel made multiple films about dinner parties gone horribly wrong.That search for something situated somewhere between these two poles might help explain the growing popularity of a French export, the dînatoire (technically, that's short for "apéro dînatoire") in the United States. Earlier this year, Air Mail's Harrison Vail explored why a growing number of people and organizations are enamored by this style of event."
"Vail pointed to one of the advantages of the dînatoire in particular: that "guests will not be anchored to a formal dinner placement," which creates more flexibility in guests' ability to come and go as needed.The Air Mail piece also posits a very understandable candidate for why more event planners and guests are embracing the dînatoire: the way that the pandemic changed our relationship with time."
Cocktail hours provide lack of fixed seating and strong drink selections but remain inherently brief. Dinner parties supply longer, seated meals but require substantial work and can overrun. The dînatoire combines elements of both by offering a full meal of small bites served without formal placements, allowing guests to circulate and arrive or leave flexibly. Interest in the format rose before the pandemic and increased as people reassessed time and social rhythms. The format appears at high-profile events in multiple U.S. cities and traces its roots to French dining culture.
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