Kerstin Rodgers - Supper Club - Recipes and notes from the underground restaurant

The individuality of the place and the table settings is part of the appeal. The quirkiness, the individuality, the absence of corporate tableware, all this is key to the success of a home restaurant.

There are some supper clubs that imitate restaurants. You book a table for two, you don’t talk to other tables. You have imitation restaurant food. The portions are tiny, nouvelle-cuisine restaurant stylee. You aren’t invited into the kitchen and all signs of slovenly family life have been tucked away. The service is formal, even obsequious. The china matches, and has been bought especially for the occasion.

I don’t get it. This is our chance to muck about with the format. Frankly, if I feel like serving a dozen starters and no pud, or vice versa, well why not? Let’s play. Yes, one has to give some food, there has to be some kind of chef/dinner/guest equation, but let’s push it around a little. ‘Guests’ can help out, come into the kitchen, get their own water. They keep their cutlery between courses, just like in France. ‘Staff’ can sit down and chat. The hierarchy is horizontal. It’s anarchy, but in the true sense of the word: ‘an’ (Greek for ‘without’) ‘archy’ (a ruler). Not chaos.

Remember: you are not a proper restaurant; you don’t have to pretend to be one. At first you will probably try to ape a restaurant – after all, this is the model that we know. But afterwards, as you gain confidence, tear up the rulebook!

Work out how many tables and chairs you have. Borrow from neighbours and relatives. (I went to one supper club that was allowed to borrow neighbour’s chairs only until midnight! Like Cinderella we had to sit on the floor afterwards!) You could also buy some cheap fold-down ones, depending on the look you want. You can always paint them, add nice cushions. Chairs, crockery, glasses and cutlery do not have to match: mismatching is great if everything ‘shouts’ at the same volume.

If you don’t have enough chairs, and the guests live nearby or have a car, let them bring their own. (Two girls once brought their own chairs to my place, then went out partying later, carrying them to a nightclub. They told me it was very handy for sitting down in the club later, not to mention a great conversation starter.) I have also used piano stools, drum stools, boxes, dressing-table stools.

The tables you buy, borrow or retrieve from the garden will guide whether you put your guests on small tables with separate parties or large mixed tables.

As for the bathroom, label it and signpost it so that people know where to go. Make sure it’s clean. Always have enough loo paper. A clean towel to dry their hands is good. After several weeks during which I kept having to buy more ear buds, I realised they were being used by the guests! I think conventional restaurants are missing a trick by not providing them! You could really go to town and provide eau de cologne, hairspray and lipstick as they do in the bathrooms of New York nightclubs.

5 FOOD.........................

Obviously this is the most important element. The menu is at the heart of what you are creating.

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO COOK?.........................

The first few times, I’d stick to the dishes you are most comfortable with cooking. You will be nervous enough, you don’t want to cock up the cooking! Later on, you can let rip with the molecular experiments!

Leave enough time to prep, and for mistakes. In your anxious state, it’s amazing how dishes you’ve cooked perfectly a hundred times can go wrong. If you do decide to experiment, practise it first. Also remember that a dish that works wonderfully for 2–6 people is very different when you are doing it for double or more than that amount of people.

The secret of good food is: spend less time cooking and more time shopping! Unusual and seasonal ingredients, even just to garnish, can add that extra flair. This is what I do, but how you do it is up to you.

~ Cocktail with olives, pretzels or nuts ~

~ Starter ~

~ Home-made bread ~

~ Main course ~

~ Salad ~

~ Cheeseboard ~

~ Dessert ~

~ Coffee ~

(sometimes fresh mint tea, depending on the meal)

For £40 that’s not bad value. The point is, you can afford the whole experience. In conventional restaurants, a lot of mental arithmetic is involved, trying to figure out if you should share a starter, miss out pudding, have coffee at home. Those little bits really add up and that is how normal restaurants make their money, with the drink, the desserts and the coffees…in short, the extras. It can make dining a frustrating experience. Even when restaurants do fixed menus, frequently there are ‘supplements’ that are added on, generally for the dish you really want.

Other times I have done tapas or meze, up to 12 small courses.

SUPPLIERS AND INGREDIENTS.........................

So you’ve made a shopping list. But how much to buy? Another difficulty. In a conventional restaurant, what you don’t sell one night, you can sell the next. For an occasional supper club you have to get it right. Only experience can tell you that.

And where are you going to buy, say, 30 artichokes for your starters? They cost a fortune in the supermarket. Suppliers are the bane of most restaurants. Reliable suppliers are the most important element of any business. If you do have connections to professional chefs or kitchens, ask them who their suppliers are...and whether they mind adding on an order for you. You will get better deals and normally they deliver to your doorstep. That’s a huge relief when prepping can take up so much time, and you don’t want to be popping out to the shops every 5 minutes.

My local organic vegetable box scheme guy came to a dinner. He loved the concept and will now do me bulk prices. It does take a while to build these relationships but they are invaluable. Repay favours in kind, invite them to a dinner!

I do a mix of shopping between the local organic veg supplier and my local street markets. Going to a street market can be very inspirational when you are feeling a bit flat, a bit ‘What the hell shall I cook this week?’

Use good ingredients. Don’t skimp on quality. If your ingredients are good, you can’t go too far wrong. One supper club I read about didn’t cook anything. They just ordered great cheeses, hams, salamis, bread, salads, chutneys, smoked fish and set it out picnic-style.

If you or your friends have gardens or allotments, ask them to sell you their excess.

I do buy from large multi-national supermarkets sometimes. It’s convenient and they deliver, saving time for you. But I try not to do so. I feel this whole ‘movement’ is about circumventing large-scale corporations.

PLAN YOUR MENU.........................

Decide what kind of food, how many courses. When you know how many people you have coming, multiply whatever recipe you are doing to make that number of servings. Make a little extra. Many home restaurants do serve seconds, just like your mum would. Better to have more than less.