The Return Of The Buffet
Forget stuffy canapés and Fussy recipes, a heaving table of helpyourself deliciousness is the modern way to Feed a party, says
Two-thousand-andeighteen is the year of the buffet, and as a restaurant critic, I applaud this. When sabine getty – queen of the dinnerparty super leagues – recently told Vogue that she favours a buffet, it was a sharp thrill to know that the beau monde was finally resurrecting the cornerstone of 1970s entertaining. Case in point: creative director alex eagle’s loft in soho, where celebrities, fashion designers, and editors regularly gather around a trestle table. ‘a buffet sets a familial tone,’ she says. ‘Plus, it’s hard to compete with the drama of a well-done buffet on an aesthetic level: a whole leg of jamón; colourful tapas; baskets piled with ripe figs…’
It’s about time the buffet had its moment of culinary glory. In my job, as the scourge of chefs, the question I’m chucked daily is: ‘But, grace, can you even cook?’ To which my answer is always: ‘Well, you won’t find me standing by a sous-vide machine studiously broiling a veal cheek to within a millisecond of tender. or erecting my own croquembouche tower.’ Lord no. I leave that style of hospitality to ruddy-faced, kitchen-bound bores. But if you want a buffet, I say, then I am your girl.
give me an impromptu 50-person guest list, a foldout emergency trestle table and a pack of frozen vol-auvent cases and, darlings, I will give you a party. Perhaps vol-au-vents aren’t your thing? Possibly you’re more of an ottolenghi ‘heaving pile of French beans with hazelnut’ person or you hanker for a fistful of samosa chaat? Well, hooray. That’s the whole point of a buffet. There’s something for everyone. I’ve sat on lofty food award panels, held to dispense prizes and plaudits, hearing how buffet goddess nigella is ‘not really a cook’. But, to be frank, if you come to one of my parties and the sight of my cheese’n’pineapple porcupine centrepiece fails to render you emotional, I care not for your opinion. If you don’t love a table groaning with pimped-up couscous, showstopping trifle and a cubic ton of my grandmother’s own recipe Coronation Chicken, then, sweetie, you’re not really an eater.
and the emphasis here is on groaning. a good buffet table, like richard Burton said of Liz Taylor, should be, ‘in short, too bloody much’. Forget food-waste worries. There will be none. here’s the rules: you need enough food for each guest to have an early-evening preamble, a return visit after three glasses of champagne for more sturdy grazing, and then, for the party hardcore, to shift it into their handbags for an uber smorgasbord on the way home. as a buffet queen once told me about catering family bar mitzvahs, ‘If there isn’t too much food, there isn’t enough food.’ I remember this phrase often at sterile parties, where teensy kebab-skewers and sashimi are doled out abstemiously by servers. Yes, a buffet would have been less elegant, but it would have sent a message of largesse, of frivolity. guests would have been able to chat without the constant interruption of the poor staff explaining the provenance of the caviar. Meanwhile, the frantic host is generally in the kitchen panicking that no one is eating, shoving servers out time and again with more fancy spoons that no one wants.
do we have this problem with my tray of champagne jelly shots, warmed cocktail sausages with a vat of caramelised onion relish? no, we do not. does anyone say, ‘grace, we loved your party, but I wish you’d not provided such an array of delicious artisan cheeses?’ again no. The simple reason buffets light up a room is this: you are providing guests with a tiny dopamine shot from a point in life they were happiest; running into a birthday party aged five; their granny’s Boxing day open house; the best eid get-together of their teen years. In a world full of judgement, here is a hark-back to a time when our ancestors ate without fretting, rather than as a method of point scoring. no one Instagrams buffets because buffets are not that pretty. But neither am I after a bottle of Taittinger. Isn’t that the point of a party?
‘no one instagrams buffets because buffets are not that pretty. but neither am i after a bottle of taittinger’