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

A drink will relax them, encourage them to socialise, ease them into the experience.

But you, however, cannot drink. Oh maybe just one. NO MORE. Take it from me: you don’t want to be half-cut as you try organising a meal for upwards of ten people. You need to be alert, on the ball, and watching all your timings like a hawk. A slip up, too long a chat with a guest, and your mains are burnt. You can start drinking once the main course is out.

Now to the sticky subject of licensing laws: out of all the possibly illegal things you are doing with a home restaurant, the most illegal is the booze. You are supposed to have a personal licence and a premises licence. I’ve got a personal licence. I haven’t got a premises licence. It’s practically impossible to get a premises licence for a residence. So you are stuck.

This is what I’ve been told by a licensing officer: you can give drink away for free but you can’t include it in the price of the meal. You can’t sell it. If caught, you can go to prison for six months or be fined £20,000.

BYO (bring your own) is legal. You could charge a corkage fee. After all, it’s you that has to provide glasses and wash them, replace them when they break, and all that work and expense adds up. However, guests often don’t bring enough drink and you don’t want them coming and going to buy more. That would piss off your neighbours and create more work for you, endlessly answering the door bell. So emphasise that guests should bring enough drink, and have the address of a local off-licence.

At first, I sold wine via lottery ticket. This turned out to be illegal, as you need permission from your local council to hold a raffle. I’ve also linked up with a small wine supplier. People pay online for the wine beforehand, with a small mark-up going to me, and it’s delivered to The Underground Restaurant. That’s what rules are for, finding a way around them!

Another pop-up restaurant, ‘The Surreal Dinner Party’, gave away a free bottle of wine in exchange for an artwork…not sure if that makes it any more legal but it was fun, especially as the guests did their own artwork and swapped.

It goes without saying that I wouldn’t serve a minor, nor would I continue to serve somebody that has clearly had far too much to drink. But it’s risky. I may end up in prison.

Then I’ll start a supper club in prison ‘Goodfellas’ style. Dress code: stripy pyjamas. Menu: porridge.

8 ON THE NIGHT.........................

Have someone to welcome the guests. You can’t be in two places at once. After guests have had their initial drink and have sat down, I do a little announcement or introduction at the beginning of the meal.

I’m naturally a backstage person, as are most chefs. Quickly I learnt, after a few weeks at The Underground Restaurant, that it was essential to make my presence known front-of-house. Now I do a talk at the start of every meal. It makes sense. People are in your home, they want to meet the host. Going to somebody’s house to eat and never meeting the host/chef is as strange as getting in the back of a friend’s car, while they drive alone up front, feeling like a taxi driver. So describe the meal, the inspiration behind it, maybe give some information about the ingredients and a few house rules. This seems to start off the little ceremony somehow. Gets the ball rolling.

MUSIC.........................

The iPod, which doesn’t require too much attention, is great for continual playlists. This is a task I outsource to my teenager. If it’s a lunch, my teen makes a sunny ’60s playlist; for dinner she uses instrumental, ‘chillaxed’ music. For themed nights she has created specialist playlists: Midnight Feasthad only songs with the word ‘black’ in the lyrics (which tended to be heavy metal!), for ‘Night of the Senses’ my teen actually composed a song on her laptop to represent the seascape. She also has playlists that are guided by the weather. It’s probably best to have fairly mellow music without lyrics so that people can talk to each other. I’ve also had living-room concerts by up-and-coming artists in exchange for food and drink. Mostly I don’t pay musicians, but I did hire an accordion player for Bastille Night to add to the French atmosphere of the evening.

TABLE SETTINGS.........................

Lay the tables. I always feel more relaxed once the tables are laid. Choosing the flowers, candles, tablecloths and napkins, vintage glasses and pretty salt and pepper is one of my favourite parts.

Write or print out menus for the guests, perhaps one per table, or write it on a blackboard (one pop-up restaurant used their children’s blackboard) or on a wall mirror with liquid chalk.

Chill the white wine or beer and soft drinks. If people want their own wine chilled, I’m afraid I say no. I have only one teensy under-the-counter domestic fridge. I have enough problems fitting in my drink and food, I can’t chill their stuff too. At times, I’ve had to resort to asking neighbours if I can use their fridges. If you have the fridge space, great, but if not, be tough.

Just as people arrive: light the candles, pour out the initial cocktails, put on the music.

9 THE HOST.........................

One of the biggest assets of an Underground chef is personality. It really helps to be willing to share yourself. Be warm. Be funny. Be cheeky. Boss them about. Sometimes the guests need chivvying along. Remember, it’s your house. As I said before, sometimes you, as the host/ess, need to break the ice. Your guests are waiting for a lead from you. If the vibe is a bit chilly at first, pop out of the kitchen, make a joke. The atmosphere will change in the blink of an eye. It’s called hospitality for a reason.

So do go out and talk to people after the main course, when you can relax to a certain extent. If you are the chef, you can’t do that while you are cooking. Guests like to feel special. People love that personal touch. How often do they get to talk to the chef in a normal restaurant?

If you are feeling generous, go around with some cognac or dessert wine. This is a good opportunity to find out who has come to your house for the night. The kind of guests you have will probably be very interesting. Boring people don’t go to underground restaurants.

Part of being a host is expressing and sharing your interests with your guests. It might be great art or photography on your walls. As my training is a background in photography and travel, my living room has 40 large black-and-white photographs of my travels.

A tip: I’m sure you’ve had dinner parties where you’ve spent so long concentrating on the food that you end up opening the door to your guests in your dressing gown with no make-up and scraggy hair. So...get ready in the morning. I put on make-up, shower and wear something nice covered with an apron, so that if I run out of time, I still look ok. Then you can always just touch up your lipstick and spray on a bit of perfume to hide the cooking smells if you run out of time.

10 GUESTS.........................

My guests come from the internet, they are mostly strangers. Some hosts set rules, such as you must write in with a little biography, give some indication of what you are about, who you are. Other hosts allow only friends and friends of friends to attend. You can do what you feel comfortable with. I’ve never yet had a problem with any of my guests. It can be a little startling for them to sit at a table of strangers, but usually the food and drink and strangeness of being in someone’s living room binds them together. As I’ve mentioned, I also do themes: quizzes, a Marmite menu, an umami menu, an Elvis night. This gives guests something to talk about.