Hosting the best dinner parties might be top of your list now you have moved house. Maybe you want to show your new home off to friends and this is a great way to do so.

Here is your guide to hosting your dinner party like a boss and making it a memorable night.

It doesn’t matter whether you are a dinner party virgin or whether you’ve been hosting evening soirees since the dawn of time. You can always enhance your gatherings and make them more enjoyable. The setting in your home environment is important to the ambience of the night. Your dining area needs to be looking stylish and comfortable for your guests to enjoy their meals.

Having an appropriate size table for your guests to sit and enjoy their food is important. If you are buying a new table find bespoke handmade furniture online which is going to leave a great impression on your guests.

Your guests will be expecting gastronomic flair, a comfortable ambience and perfect hosting skills.

You might have the first two in the bag but your hosting is lacking slightly. These are a few pointers about hosting dinner parties which will reflect well on you.

Hosting the best dinner parties

Take a look at how you can host your dinner party like a boss and make your evening go from distinctly average to out of this world.

Get The Invites Out Early

It’s vital that you create a guest list that ensures a perfect blend of personalities around your dinner table. Don’t invite Dave if you know that he doesn’t get along with Sam and sit them together to watch the sparks fly. Instead, decide who you’ll invite based on the sort of atmosphere you want at your soiree

The chances are you want quite a relaxed affair so the party animals that you know need not apply. Don’t invite everyone in your little black book; the optimum number is six or eight

This way you have the intimacy of a small gathering, but your guests aren’t stuck talking to the same person all evening if they don’t want to. When you have your guest list solidified, you can then sort out table settings, and seating plans to maximise good conversation.

Keep The Drink Flowing

There’s nothing worse at a dinner party than your guests having to continually ask if there’s any more plonk to go around.

It can make you look a little cheap at worst and forgetful at best.

Ensure that you have your wines from Oddbins on hand and keep the whites refrigerated and the reds at room temperature.

You don’t have to be pretentious and serve a specific wine with every course. However, if you know the perfect Rioja to go with your chateaubriand main, then serve it up.

You want to offer your guests an experience that they won’t forget in a hurry.

The Food

Being the perfect dinner party host also means that you need to be able to cook at least three decent courses.

Don’t try and get away with two because this is simply a stay-at-home dinner. Consider the balance of your courses.

It’s always a good idea to opt for a lighter meal. Don’t cook a chunky soup, meat pie or sticky steamed pudding as these will leave your guests feeling sluggish and too full. Your guests won’t be able to move at the end of the evening after 3 heavy courses.

Consider the food that you love to eat. Think about your travels, the best dish you’ve recently eaten or one of these mince dishes you’ve been dying to give a try but didn’t have an excuse to cook for! Whipping up a stroganoff with fresh pasta made the Italian way could allow you to show off what you’ve done on your travels, whilst providing a tasty meal at the same time!

Try and emulate these in your dinner party and cook from the heart.

Cooking by numbers and following bog-standard recipes is a little boring. Show a bit more flair and cook some Thai tapas, a Greek meze or a chilli chocolate fondant.

Take some of the stress away from cooking by having a grazing table for dessert. This way, you can have it all set up and ready for when you get on to that course. You will be able to relax more at this stage and enjoy the party more.

A dinner party should be fun, not just for the guests, but for the host as well.

Follow this guide, and you will be hosting your next dinner party like a boss.