The Rise Of Supper Clubs

The term “supper club” just snuck into our vocabulary and has started popping up all over the internet, but what is it exactly?

The dictionary defines it as “a restaurant or nightclub serving suppers and usually providing entertainment.” Most supper clubs in London don’t take place in either a restaurant or a nightclub but rather in someone’s own home. Catering for only a small number of people, they tend to take the essence of fine dining and turn it into a more social and exclusive event.

The evening will usually be themed and will serve food related to that theme or from a particular country. Many people host supper clubs to earn a little bit of extra money while being able to cook food and enjoy themselves.

Alissa Timoshkina started her own supper club, Kino Vino, in May 2015. The Russian 32-year-old has a PhD in film studies and used to be a curator and event manager for different film festivals. “My PhD was in film and the holocaust which in itself is a very daunting and exhausting subject. The studying was emotionally quite a difficult thing for me to do so at the same time I started cooking as a way to do something creative with my head.”

Timoshkina, who starter off by just cooking for her friends now runs a successful monthly supper club which hosts 40 to 50 people. “It go to a point where I felt like I wanted to do something for other people, you know, cooking for other people. But I wasn’t brave enough to just quit my job and start a career in food. So I thought what would be a nice kind of way to combine my career and knowledge of film and introduce food into it.”

Her food inspired meals get created with the help guest chefs and screens a film which relates to the theme of the evening. In March, food writer and amateur chef, Zuza Zak was in charge of a Polish night which screened Adrzej Wajda’s 1979 classic ‘Ladies of Wilko’. “To me it’s this idea of a journey that you get to travel through the film and the food,” says Timoshkina.

Timoshkina hosts her dinners in venues located in Shoreditch and Clapham where she creates a little pop-up cinema followed by the meal. “At first my idea was to just cook myself at someone’s house, super low key. But I guess I just don’t do low key and I was like no it has to be big. Luckily a friend of mine who is quite an established chef worked with me for one of the first dinners and once I had her name attached to it I got loads of attention and press. From there on out it just grew and I decided it would be an interesting idea to work with different chefs,” says Timoshkina.

While Timoshkina’s supper club is more professionally done than others, there are many places across London where you can attend a supper club with only a handful of other people at someone’s home.

Lavinia Della Speranza, 28, has just started her own supper club in her South London apartment. Her speciality is Italian food along with good wine but says she would never want to quit her day job as an optometrist and be full time chef. “I think for me the social interaction is what I like the most. That’s what makes it so different from restaurants. It’s more intimate and you can chat with everybody while you’re cooking and meet new people. In a restaurant you’d just be in the kitchen under a lot of

The thing that seems to make supper clubs so popular is the combination of socialising and eating great homemade food while not having to cook it yourself.

You can find out the dates for upcoming supper club nights at https://kinovino.org/