Have we finally reached peak supper club?

If your Insta ‘explore’ page is full of London food, London bars and London restaurants, you’ll be well-versed with certain unavoidable phrases: ‘small plates’; ‘neighbourhood’; ‘bosh’. But there’s another, which has found renewed interest on feeds over the course of 2023. And that phrase is: ‘supper club’.

A supper club is a one-off dinner thrown by a venue or cook, usually with a special menu just for that evening. They’ve been a staple of dining culture in London for years, with the most hyped ones hosted by chefs like Asma Khan of Biryani Supper Club and Maria Georgiou and Rhiannon Butler of Mam Sham – but over the last six months, it feels as though something has shifted.

Suddenly, online, it was supper clubs as far as the eye could see. There they were, replete with rows of colourfully set tables, swathes of cute gingham place settings and piles of prettily mismatched vintage plates. The supper club had collided with the algorithm, and it was taking over sharpish. 

Nailing the aesthetic 

As a quick scroll of TikTok or Instagram will show you, these days, there are supper clubs of all kinds: supper clubs in chefs’ own homes, on barges, even one on an old Tube carriage. There are supper clubs for singles, supper clubs for vegans, super clubs for zero-waste aficionados and supper clubs for only women.

The concept has grown in visibility – and has been filtered through the #aesthetic hashtag – after being adoptied by increasing numbers of chefs with big social media followings (and good eyes for a viral pic). Take Xanthe Ross with her piles of meringue bigger and more ornate than Marie Antoinette’s gorgeously powdered wig, for example, or the retro stylings of Sophie ‘Mann’s Got Munch’ Mann, whose amped-up spins on vol au vents and spaghetti hoops on toast have attracted hungry followers in their thousands.  

We’ve arrived at this place of Peak Supper Club largely because of that social media element, with the dominant aesthetic tending to: ‘homely if your home was a charming countryside pile in the south of France and not a poky flat in Zone 3’. Menus are handwritten, tables heave with wonky but winsome ceramics and the food is dished up with social media virality in its sights. 

‘In the lead up to a supper club I will share pre-shot pics and videos of the menu and hope that will interest people,’ says Monika Solanki, who hosts supper clubs around London alongside her 9-to-5 job. ‘Some of these posts have gone viral and in the lead up to my last supper club, it sold out overnight due to a post going viral on TikTok.’ 

Into the IRL

The whole endeavour offers people the chance to step into culinary worlds they’re otherwise only able to admire through their phone screens. It’s a bit of IRL Instagram – textbook experience economy – exacerbated by the fact that the dishes on offer are usually one-time-only affairs by the next generation of celeb chefs, who maintain their audiences via Substack newsletters and TikTok recipe videos rather than TV shows and books. It taps into the same ‘exclusive drop’ food culture that sees people queuing up at hype-y bakeries at all hours to secure pastries to post on their Stories. In other words: going to a supper club is another way to show off your taste. 

Fiona Louise, 30, is a regular punter at London supper clubs, which she discovers via recommendations from friends and from social media. For her, the appeal is in the intimacy and in ‘getting to learn about the dishes in a way that’s more approachable and less intimidating than going to a Michelin star place.’ Food critic and writer Angela Hui agrees, explaining that the concept’s current explosion in popularity is a response to the fact that ‘diners are increasingly hungry for meaningful conversations with the people who cook their food.’

Diners are increasingly hungry for meaningful conversations with the people who cook their food

For some, having your dinner explained to you might seem like hell – but if you’re signing up to one of these evenings, you’re probably pretty interested to hear from whoever made it. Sophie Wyburd, a chef with an Instagram following of around 117,000, sees her supper clubs as an ‘extension’ of her own dinner table and a way to ‘nurture’ her connection with her following. ‘Being able to do this in real life with people I have built a relationship with virtually is magical to me,’ she says. ‘I like to go round and serve the dishes myself, so I get a chance to chat to all the guests.’

Feeling hungry

The prevalence of social media within London food culture, Solanki says, feels like an important element of the supper club boom. ‘Now more-so than before, TikTok has become a search engine for “things to do in London” and I’ve found the more I share about it and about myself online, people become invested in your journey,’ she says.

On her socials, Solanki posts crowd-pleasing, mouth-watering dishes like chilli paneer, crisp-then-creamy truffle arancini and smooth hummus offset with sharp coriander chutney – some of which have also featured at her supper clubs.

Wyburd’s grid is full of images of dinner bowls of pasta swathed in silky Taleggio sauce, hearty-but-chic root veg galettes and steaming stews of beans and greens. At her most recent event in late November, she presented her diners with bubbling trays of lasagna, family style, for them to share. For her, this social aspect of supper clubs – which often see guests sitting at communal tables in a way that doesn’t usually happen at restaurants – is all part of part of the experience.

‘Post-Covid, it seems like the appetite for supper clubs is greater than ever,’ she tells me. ‘You can come down with your friends, but end up being seated next to people who also become friends by the end of the night. I think lots of us are really craving that social connection these days and eating a meal together is an excellent vehicle for it.’ 

Dishing up

In other words, while people might go to supper clubs for the nicely lit food pics, they end up returning for the chat and common ground that they find with other diners. I went to my first ever supper club in south London in early November and found that meeting my fellow punters was the most novel part. 

The night was held by ROOT, a floating dining concept which throws one-off events featuring upcoming culinary talent with specialist wine pairings at different venues in London. Manning the hobs was ‘Masterchef: The Professionals’ 2023 contestant Jay Sharp, whose dishes included a take on moules frites with a hash brown, plus an ice cream cookie sandwich to finish – both of which exemplified the type of indulgent, playful, and (crucially) good-looking food that does well among millennials online. 

It also provided a great jumping off point when talking to the strangers I was sat next to. We chatted about chicken nuggets, air fryers (I am evangelical but the crowd was split) and our favourite places to eat – I’m excited to try Uludag in Dalston, which was recommended to me on the night. As someone whose social life revolves around established friendship groups, it was a genuinely cool, low-pressure way to chat to new people with similar interests.  

Footing the bill

Away from the social elements (both URL and IRL), though, there are other reasons why supper clubs seem to have boomed in particular over the last year, chief among them: money, and everyone’s lack of it. It’s an unfortunate truth that going out for dinner is usually more expensive than you expect. And while access to a supper club will still set you back – tickets tend to range from £30 to £70 – an upfront price (often with the option to add on drinks pairings) means you know what you’ve paid for, and can budget for it accordingly.  

For TJ Worrall-Thompson (son of Anthony), who founded ROOT with former Fallow chef Lexi van Breugel, supper clubs make sense from a business perspective too. ‘With the current economic climate, it’s the perfect way to trial out ideas and concepts without taking on too much of the risk that goes into a bricks and mortar site,’ he explains. Worrall-Thompson adds that supper clubs are becoming so embedded in London’s food offering that ‘there is an infrastructure slowly building with platforms being created solely to assist supper clubs.’ He cites the hospitality jobs and advice platform Countertalk, who also help to match venues and supper club concepts together, as a big help.

Back for seconds

For venues, supper clubs represent flexible new opportunities that are proven to attract new and more varied clientele. Jack Parton, former head of events at MOB Kitchen, now curates the food programming for Peckham Arches – a bar with both outdoor seating and a conservatory-style dining room – in south east London. Parton tells me that the venue’s move into supper clubs has recently brought a great deal of business in. ‘You do find with most events that it’s a different crowd, based on the chef’s age, who they speak to, the style of cooking they do,’ he says. ‘That’s great for us because it brings new eyes on the venue.’ For the last couple of months, Peckham Arches has ramped up its supper club offering (they now usually host one every week or so), and business, overall, has boomed.

For chefs, it’s the perfect way to trial out ideas without taking on too much of the risk that goes into a bricks and mortar site

‘October, for pretty much everyone in hospitality, especially an outdoor venue, is a month where you bite and hope you break even,’ Parton says. ‘But we had so many bookings that October was better than July for us. I think a lot of that was people coming to supper clubs and saying “OK, I’m going to have my birthday here because it’s the perfect space”.’

Ultimately, supper clubs have become such a big story because their pastel-coloured algorithm domination has overlapped with real-world circumstances. All of my interviewees agree that the scene shows no signs of slowing down: Hui names some current favourites including Uyen Luu’s Vietnamese supper clubs, Karla Zazueta’s Mexican Food Memories, Lillian Li’s Shanghai Supper Club and Rahel Stephanie’s Spoons. And while you might show up because of a mouth-watering dish you’ve seen online, or because you can’t afford a similar experience at a restaurant, you soon find that there’s more to it. As Hui says, supper clubs are ultimately ‘about fun and food with friends’ – and you can’t get much better than that.