to listen as you read:
That Dinner Thing is a New York based supper club sprung from the minds of Claire Chatinover, Ryn Adkins, and Sierra Lai whose mission is to foster community over good food. What its guests get out of their experience at a TDT supper exists in direct proportion to what they put in. In this particular case, risk is highly rewarded and vulnerability welcomed with open arms. How one creates a space where strangers—20 of them at a time—feel comfortable not only to connect but to grow, is no small feat. And to say that TDT has learned through trial by fire is perhaps even too literal an interpretation of their journey—during their first summer hosting as a team, the apartment they were cooking in caught on fire. From there, they’ve moved spaces (thrice), they’ve iterated, they’ve developed systems and traditions to enhance the experience of their diners, they’ve tested hundreds of recipes, they’ve grown and evolved. But still, their bottom line remains: to bring people together.
SK: How did That Dinner Thing come to be?
TDT: Claire, who is our lead curator and production “hostess with the mostest” moved to New York five years ago. She didn't know anyone so she started inviting small groups of people to her apartment for dinner. And that small group of one or two friends turned into 20 and then 40 and, over time, into what we have now.
Sierra: When I moved to New York two years ago I got to attend one of Claire’s dinner parties. I started seeing these this group of 20 every month and those people became my first community in in New York. The bottom line of That Dinner Thing is still to create community. We don't promise best friendships. But what we do promise is that initial point of connection, that initial opportunity to put yourself out there, and a space to linger in. Because, after all, New York can be fucking lonely sometimes.
SK: How do you see this mission reflected in your approach to hosting?
Sierra: We try to make dinners as accessible as we possibly can. And I think this shows in certain the elements of our dinner that have endured. For example we only sell tickets in pairs—which guests access though a lottery system—so you have to bring a plus one. And there's definitely some comfort in that, no matter how extroverted you are, and especially if you're more introverted.
That Dinner Thing hosts dinners every other month, taking take two weeks off after each one to reflect and recuperate.
Sierra: We used to be monthly, which was crazy. It meant that as soon as one ended, we were talking about the next one. It ended up being unsustainable, and at one point, we took a step back and asked one another “is this fun for you?” Because, at the end of the day, it’s supposed to be fun.
There were a lot of things in our early days that were unsustainable. When we started, we were cooking in an apartment in Fort Greene and hosting in the backyard of a cafe. We used to cook in the apartment, run down two flights of stairs through this cafe to a backyard and serve food there.
At some point in their first summer, the apartment they were cooking in caught on fire. They remember it as very difficult time for the project when they were forced to relocate to a kitchen even further away from the place they were hosting.
Sierra laughs: From there, we had to cook in the apartment, shove things in Ubers and drive it to the cafe for service. Yeah we've come a very long way from that.
SK: Where do you host your dinners now?
TDT: After Fort Green, we moved to a big event space in Chinatown with a large open kitchen. And now we’re in a home in Clinton Hill, which feels different for sure. It totally affects the way people enter the space.
I think people step into our current space and like want to take their shoes off. It’s that feeling of comfort that makes them feel more open to conversation and open to meeting people. Everyone feels just like a friend of a friend as opposed to this room of strangers because we're in a home.
Creating a space where people can find community meant creating a very warm space. So having lots of flowers and lots of candles and good food goes a long way. It’s the idea of creating this third space that I think that our generation feels like it's lacking.
Ryn is the culinary mind behind TDT’s dinners. They play not only into seasonality when planning their menu, but also into the component of risk which is built into the model of their dinner generally.
SK: How do you plan your menu?
Ryn: If you’re coming to one of our dinners, you are probably okay with some element of risk. I mean, we’re asking people to dine with a group of strangers. So yeah, I definitely feel more empowered to try new things with my menu.
TDT: The menu and theme inform one another. Ryn spends about 4-5 weeks on menu development, with at least two dinners just the three of us in that period. There is big jump that happens from the second test to the final we get 80% there. But Ryn’s food is always phenomenal and we've gotten rave reviews before.
Sierra, who is responsible for the marketing, also enlists various partners to supply ingredients, which informs the menu.
Sierra: We’ve worked with brands like Gotham Greens, Ghia, and most recently, Randy’s Studio, which makes small batch ice cream by the pint.
SK: How have you seen TDT change and how do you see it evolving in the future?
Sierra: A lot has changed since we started and I think that’s only going to continue. Obviously we’ve changed locations but we’ve also changed a lot of our approach. Now we two seatings, one at 5:30 and one at 8:30 with 20 guests at each, whereas before we were doing one seating of 40 which was kind of insane.
We started doing themes as well that ties together our evenings. It's usually one word, just something we're thinking about that month like in the past we’ve done expansion or another month it was sonder.
And then we formulated a question around it for people think about and talk with other people about throughout the night. But to we invite people to toast to the question, which is extremely scary, but it is something that we have seen a lot of success with. Basically, one person will get up and answer the question in front of a room of like 20 to 30 strangers and everyone clinks their glasses and toast to their answer.
The idea comes from this wonderful book called The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker. To ground everyone in one thing helps connect a room, and that's why the theme is so important.
And then the last thing that really get at our mission of building community is we have started to do something called New York Secrets. When we were restructuring the dinner to be two smaller groups, we were thinking about how we could still foster connection across these groups that will never meet, but are sharing in the same experience for the night.
So we give each guest a card, you can write anything on it anonymously. As deep or as surface as you want it to be. We've had funny ones we've had people really spill true, true secrets of their life. Um, one of my favorite ones was a girl put down, Fuck Around and Find Out and left her phone number. I don't know what ever came of that, but that was a very good one.
And then at the next seating, we place the card in the exact seat that you were sitting, so that the person that's coming after you will get to see the secret of the person before them. And even for the first seating, we have a secret from the previous dinner waiting for you.
So you're always getting something from someone who has had a similar experience, byt yet so different at the same time. We thought it was a really beautiful way to, connect people that would never meet, um, in a very physical, like, in real life way. Everything is so digital now, it feels nice that the secret is kept on this card. It’s a very human practice.
We've definitely come a very long way. And I think it’s honestly because of how much we believe in the mission. I think for all of us, we just want to continue being able to create community over good food.
For more TDT, follow them on Instagram to stay up to date on the latest ticket lotteries, community events, partnerships and hosting tips and tricks.
This is my new favorite thing! At the University of Michigan there’s a similar “supper club” called The Side Door (a pop up restaurant run by U-M students that does biweekly seated 8-person dinners to foster community around strangers).
I love the card activity and the idea of grounding people in a unifying theme.