Five courses. Your table. Somebody else at the sink.
A tasting menu cooked in your kitchen and served in your dining room, anywhere within about forty minutes of Belfast. Not the pizza night. This is the sit-down one.
One of five, served to the table
01What a dinner isYour table, your numbers
A tasting menu, in your house
Five courses, cooked in your kitchen and served at your table. A set tasting menu or something built around the occasion, agreed with you beforehand. Anywhere within about forty minutes of Belfast.
Either the set five courses or something built around the occasion. Bespoke costs no more than the set menu; it just needs the conversation a fortnight out.
- A small tableSeated, plated, five courses, paced through the evening. This is the version the whole thing is built around.
- A bigger tableStill five courses, but sharing plates down the middle rather than individually plated. It is the better way to eat at that size, and it keeps everything coming out hot.
- A crowdAsk. Past a certain point it needs a second pair of hands and more oven, both of which can be arranged. Tell us the number and we will tell you what is possible.
Plated, not passed round
02Where this comes fromBefore Belfast
Six seasons, a new table every week
Six winters of this
Before Belfast there were six seasons running chalets in the Alps: a new set of guests every week, five courses a night, every allergy and dislike on a list stuck to somebody else's fridge.
A chalet season teaches you one thing properly: how to cook well in a kitchen you did not design, for people you met that afternoon. That is the whole job of a private dinner.
Phil, six seasons and the one at the pass
03How an evening runsMethod
Five steps, a fortnight
Most of the work happens before the day. What you are buying is somebody else’s planning, and an evening off in your own house.
A fortnight before
We talk about the menu
What the occasion is, who is coming, what they cannot eat, and what you actually like. Either the set five courses or something built from scratch. The second costs no more, it just needs the conversation.
The week before
The shopping happens
Sourced against the menu rather than the menu written against a delivery. This is also when we confirm what your kitchen has and what we need to bring.
The afternoon of
We arrive and take over
Usually about four hours before you sit down. Prep, mise en place, and staying out of the way while people arrive.
From eight
Five courses, paced
Served to the table, one at a time, at the speed of the evening rather than the speed of the kitchen. Nobody is rushed and nothing arrives while you are mid-story.
By midnight
The kitchen as you left it
Cleared, washed, and put back. You should wake up to a kitchen that shows no sign anyone cooked five courses in it.
Step four. Paced to the evening
04What it costsWithin 40 minutes of BT7
Priced for the evening
Priced per evening and agreed with you beforehand, before anything is bought. Ask with a date and a head count and you get a figure back, not a brochure.
- Courses
- Five
- Reach
- Within 40 minutes
What that includes
- A menu agreed with you, around the occasion and the allergies
- Five courses, plated and served through the evening
- All the shopping, prep and cooking
- Wine suggestions for each course, so you can buy well
- Your kitchen left the way we found it
What it does not
- Drinks. We suggest, you pour. No licence, no mark-up
- Crockery and glassware for more than twelve, usually
- Anything that needs a kitchen we have not seen
05Ask about a dateOne reply, usually within a day
Tell us the date
The form asks for the handful of things that decide whether an evening is possible, so the first reply can be a real answer with a price on it rather than more questions.
Your table, an hour before
Rather not host? Take a seat at ours instead: The Harvest Table is five seasonal courses for six to eight people, in our house in Belfast.
Planning a birthday, work do or Christmas party rather than a table for two? See parties & catering for pizza brought to your venue, or canapés for a crowd.